


try to kiss the skin that crawls from you

by ladyofrosefire



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Cunnilingus, Don’t copy to another site, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Time, Hand Jobs, Past Abuse, Past Torture, Past Violence, Recovery, Riding, Ripley and Saundor are their own trigger warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-05-15 13:05:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19296349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofrosefire/pseuds/ladyofrosefire
Summary: From the back room of The Rising Sun, Percy hears the door open and close, the sound of footsteps, and then a woman’s voice saying, “I’d like a tattoo.”Vex comes in looking for a tattoo to celebrate the end of a bad relationship. Percy is the co-owner of the tattoo shop. Both of them have ghosts and scars of one type or another.Tale as old as time, and all that.Explicit rating kicks in at chapter 4. The work is complete and will update weekly.





	1. The Rising Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to SparxWrites, NotAFicWriter, and Damoselmaledisant. 
> 
> This chapter has warnings for mentions of past abuse.

From the back room of The Rising Sun, Percy hears the door open and close, the sound of footsteps, and then a woman’s voice saying, “I’d like a tattoo.”  
It’s not an unusual occurrence, and Pike replies smoothly. “That’s great! Do you know what of? And can I get you an art book?”

“Yes, please. I looked at your website— it’s a little out of date…”

“Yeah, neither of us is really the best with website design. People are happier anyway to let us put their pictures in a book, instead of online. Because of body parts.”

There follows the heavy thump of the art books hitting the counter. There are three main ones— designs on paper, Pike’s work on skin, and Percy’s. He can’t hear the sound of pages over the opening and closing of the cabinet doors and the general soft clatter that comes with cleaning up his workstation. The walk-in has fallen silent. Percy finishes wiping everything down before he takes off his gloves and drops them into the proper disposal. The autoclave is running in the back corner. He checks the timer before making his way out to the front.

Both women look up immediately.

“Hi, Percy!” Pike calls. The ring in her lip glints as she grins.

The walk-in looks familiar, although she has no piercings and no ink that he can see on her gold-brown skin. Though the leather jacket she wears fits in perfectly with their regular clientele, there’s something about the way she carries herself that makes Percy pause. The gaze she fixes him with is sharp. It’s her eyes, deep hazel and keen, that finally make the dots connect. She’s one of Keyleth’s friends, the one that she had not heard from for a while until quite recently. The one who had gone silent for eight months.

“Is this yours?” she asks, pointing down at the book in front of her.

“I don’t suppose you remember me. I’m Percival de Rolo. Keyleth introduced us a few years ago. You’re Vax…something?” He approaches, tipping his head to get a look at the pages. It’s one of the older pieces; lightning and metal wrapping up a forearm. “Is that the sort of thing you’re looking for?”

“Nope. And not quite.” She gives a lopsided smile. “Vax is my brother. I’m Vex. Vex’ahlia. Keyleth said a couple of friends of hers have a parlor. I didn’t know she meant you two.”

“Have you looked at Pike’s pieces?” Percy tugs at a rolled-up cuff. Gears and smoke curl up his forearms, vanishing beneath his sleeves. It’s some of her best work if he says so himself.

“She has,” Pike reaches over to rub his shoulder, which he allows. The work she’s been doing on his back has healed. She hadn’t been able to touch above his arms for the last few weeks.

Vex continues flipping through the book. “I like her style. It’s just… sorry, darling, but it’s not quite for me.”  
Pike waves a hand at her. “That’s fine! It’s going to be on your skin forever. You should be happy with it.”

A flicker passes over Vex’s face. “I know, I know. I’ve wanted one for a while, and today I have some time, so I thought I’d come by and… you get the idea.”

Pike and Percy exchange a look. He lets her handle it, even if he technically is the one who knows her. This sort of thing falls directly into Pike’s wheelhouse.

She shifts on her stool, a furrow forming on her forehead. “…You know, you don’t have to make a decision today.”

“Oh, I know,” Vex replies brightly. “But I have an hour or so, and I thought I’d start looking at designs.”

That’s better than plunging right in. And she’s sober, clearly. They’ve had to tell a few people to come back another time when they staggered through the door. Pike nods. Percy exhales.

“Well,” Percy comes to stand beside Vex, “if it’s my style you like, I would be happy to design something for you. Do you know where you want it?”

“That depends. Are you going to tell me my skin is a problem?” She asks. The tilt of her head causes her braid to flip behind her shoulder.

“I’m not incompetent, so no.” Percy has some words for ‘artists’ who complain about tattooing on people of color, but this is not the time to voice most of them. So he settles for shaking his head. “It’s a poor artist who blames their canvas. Or their tools.”

She grins, and it pushes some of the shadows back from her face. For a moment, she looks more like the woman Keyleth introduced him to, enough to make him remember sitting and talking with her and Keyleth. There had been pictures of a very large dog. Percy had gotten the sense that he would like Vex quite a bit if he could manage to sit among people for more than an hour. She had slid from his mind at about the same moment she stopped answering Keyleth’s texts, and the realization sends a spike of guilt through him.

“In that case,” Vex angles herself away from the counter and presses her hands flat against her stomach so that her fingers just cover the slant of her hip bones. “Maybe wrapping around, or…” She shrugs.

“We can talk about it.”

He starts toward the collection of black chairs by the only windows, but Vex shakes her head. “Do you have a back room?”

“...Through there, although we normally do consultations in the front.”

“Great.” She grabs the book with his art off of the counter. “Thanks, Pike.” Then she starts for the back room.

Percy and Pike look at each other for a moment before he goes after Vex. He finds her sitting on the chair, thumbing through the binder. She’s shrugged her jacket off and has it draped across her knees. Under it, she wears a blue tank top that leaves him with a clear view of the mottled bruises that ring her upper arms. It’s not that they surprise him, exactly. Considering her sudden lack of communication, something like this seemed obvious. He just had not expected the bruises to be so fresh. Percy does not stare. He does, however, hesitate a moment before closing the door. Then he makes his way to his work chair and settles onto it, folding his arms across his chest. It’s another moment before Vex looks up from the pages.

“You do more flowers than I was expecting,” Vex comments.

“They’re popular. Is that what interests you?”

“Something with more thorns. Maybe birds… What would the cost on something like this be?”

There’s a steeliness in the set of her chin that has Percy biting back a sigh. Silently, he runs figures. He’s established, not horribly busy, but skilled, and she’s asking for custom work. And with the size that she wants… He gives her an estimate, and she winces before she can stop herself.

“It would be over multiple sessions if you’re looking for full color and a detailed design. Three or four, I’d say, since this is your first tattoo. Is any of that a problem?”

“No, no. It’s fine. My pain tolerance is good,” Vex replies, a wry twist to her mouth.

Percy frowns. “Are… Pardon, but are the bruises anywhere else I should worry about?”

Vex glances away for a half moment. Then she tugs up her tank top. The bruises aren’t widespread, but they’re fresh, and one particularly vivid one overlaps more or less exactly the spot she indicated for her design. There are no scars. Percy gives her a nod, and Vex tugs her shirt back down.

“Depending on how quickly you heal, we could schedule something about two weeks from now. That would give us time to work on a design.”

She nods. Vex sits up a little in the chair. “Do you mind if we stay in here? In case someone else comes in.”

“Just let me get my sketchbook.”

Pike hops down from her high stool as Percy joins her behind the counter. “Well?”

“We’re going to work on a design, and she’ll come back in a week or two.” He gathers pencils, pens, and notebook, tucking the latter under his arm before straightening. “She didn’t run screaming at the cost, and she didn’t insist she can do it all in one sitting.”

“Oh, good.” Pike sighs. “She has that vibe, you know?”

Percy gives her a sideways look. “You mean the one that I had.”

“Sort of. You were way more obviously fucked up, no offense.”

“None taken.” He pauses a moment and then lets out a heavy sigh. “I know her. Keyleth— she was trying to introduce me to a couple of her friends, and I— well. This was just before I had one of my moments. And then the friend dropped off the map.”

Pike doesn’t judge him, not visibly, which is one of the things Percy loves about her. She only reaches over to squeeze his shoulder again. “Make her an _awesome_ tattoo, okay?” He nods, and Pike sits back. “Scanlan is dropping by in about ten minutes for a piercing because I had a free second. I think he said his nose?” She grins, bright and evil, in brilliant contrast to the abstract angel stretching across her collarbones. “One of these days, he isn’t going to chicken out of the Prince Albert.”

Percy lets out a weak chuckle. “...I do not want to be here on that day.”

She’s still laughing when Percy closes the workroom door again.

Vex looks at him, putting her phone aside. “Should my ears be burning?”

“Not at all. We’re having a friend by. Pike keeps threatening to—well.” he clears his throat and does his best to ignore the look Vex gives him. He’s supposed to be a professional, and that is an excellent excuse not to talk about his friends’ genitals. “There’s really no need to get into all of that. Your design. Something with thorns? Is… there a, ah, particular meaning you have in mind. Or an idea you want to evoke?”

Vex shifts upright and swings her legs over the sides of the chair so she can face him. It doesn’t look particularly comfortable, but sitting in the tattoo chair can feel a bit like being a dentist’s office. Percy can understand the impulse to face the person to whom one is speaking. She curls her arms around her stomach, over the mottled bruises. The worst of them is such a clear echo of a hand that Percy feels static pushing at the edges of his focus. He drums his pencil against the paper until his head clears. Only after does he realize the gesture may appear impatient.

If Vex takes offense, she gives no sign of it. “Celebrating a breakup.” She replies, tilting her chin in a way that’s all challenge.

Percy only nods. “Not roses, then?”

“ _No_. And I’d like to avoid a lot of black.”

“Of course.”

He makes a note to look into flowering shrubs and trees with thorns. Blackberries are right out, with their bruise-purple fruits.

“What about birds?”

Percy looks up. “I can draw them if that’s what you’re asking. Any particular kind?”

“I like corvids; they’re clever. But bluejays or magpies, not ravens and crows. Black. Um… maybe not a lot of red, either.” She flounders for a moment. “I’ll do some research. Is there an email I can use if I find reference images I like?”

In response, he pulls a business card from his pocket and hands it to her. Vex tucks it away in her jacket.

“Pike will take your contact information when you make your appointment. Is it alright to send you pictures of your design?”

“Sure.” She leans forward to look at the sketchbook. The smell of her shampoo cuts through the disinfectant and Percy blinks. A moment later, she sits back. There’s nothing for her to see yet.

“Ah—do you mind?” He holds up a hand, fingers splayed. “I don’t have to touch you, but I’d like to get a reference for the approximate size you want.”

“Go ahead.”

She sits perfectly still while he holds up his hand, asks ‘here?’ and ‘down to here?’ and makes notes. Then he looks up and offers her a half smile. “I’m afraid it will be rather boring until I have a more finished design.”

Vex hops down from the chair. “I’ll see you in a couple weeks, then. Um…” She stands for a moment with her jacket. “Thank you. I’ll tell Keyleth you say hi?”

“And that I’ll see her soon. You’re welcome. Thank you for coming in.”

She laughs. “I’ll go make my next appointment.”

 

Percy stays up too late that night working on the first draft. It’s not right, and he can feel it. Mirroring the pieces perfectly bores him, but getting them to balance when they’re asymmetrical proves harder than he anticipated. In the middle of yet another google search of appropriate birds, his gaze drifts and falls on the stack of unopened mail. He’d shown it to Pike that morning, and she’d assured him there were no… unpleasant surprises in it. But there likely isn’t anything interesting, either. If Cassandra needs to contact him, she emails. She rarely does.

He takes a moment to flip through the envelopes and confirm that they’re all magazines trying to get him to buy a subscription. Percy tosses almost all of them into the recycling. When he looks back to his laptop, he finds it’s pushing past one in the morning, and he has to work the next day. With a sigh, he makes his way toward the bathroom. He doesn’t look in the mirror as he waits for the water to heat up and dumps his clothes into the hamper. He still catches a glimpse as he leaves again. The mirror is just foggy enough to cover what the half-finished tattoo doesn’t not yet entirely—the mess of scar tissue running from his shoulders to his waist and down both arms. Percy resists the urge to rub at it, even though the freshest part of the ink is healed, and does his best to sleep.


	2. Sketch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy and Vex meet to go over designs.

They meet again sooner than two weeks later, not because something has suddenly opened up or because Vex’ahlia has gotten impatient or healed faster. No, they meet at a local café during her lunch break because the design does not work and Percy— 

Percy is perhaps becoming obsessed. Not with her, he assures Pike on his way out, but with the project. He is attempting to do for her what Pike had helped to do for him, except he is not trying to ink over scar tissue. Not the literal kind. No, he means to create something that can—can—

He does not know how to describe it. It is not a cover-up, it is not transformation or integration, and it certainly is not making something beautiful out of the bruises Vex came in sporting. Maybe that is the problem. It’s hard to do something correctly when he doesn’t bloody know what it is he’s attempting. Hence the meeting with Vex. 

Despite his best efforts, Percy arrives a few minutes late with pencils in his coat pocket and a folder under his arm. He spots Vex immediately, sitting at one of the outdoor tables, her hair in a braid draped over her shoulder. At her feet, tucked quietly into as small a space as possible, lies a wolf in a harness. Or perhaps an undersized bear. Then he blinks and realizes he is looking at a very large dog. It raises its head as Percy approaches, its ears pricking. 

“Hello, Vex,” he nods to the enormous animal. “Is this… Trinket? Was that it?”

“Percy! Yes, his name is Trinket. He’s a very good boy, don’t worry. Aren’t you, darling?” She laughs, reaching down to scratch between Trinket’s ears.

The dog woofs softly.

“Hello, Trinket,” He adds dutifully, taking the seat across from her. With Trinket under the table, Percy has to take some care with how he arranges his legs. He does not offer to shake Vex’s hand, but the smile he gives her is more genuine than he manages typically. “How have you been?”

“Oh, fine. Lovely. Keeping busy.” Vex flicks her braid over her shoulder. Her sharp gaze flicks over him, not judging but assessing, seeing how he reads in the light of day. Then she smiles. “Thank you for agreeing to this.”

He shrugs. “It’s no trouble.”

Pike had the grace not to tell him she’s happy to see him getting out, even if it’s just on business. 

“So,” he continues, “I’ve started a new sketch.”

“I brought branches?”

“Sorry?” 

“Branches. Trinket, stay right there.” Vex reaches under her chair and pulls out what is definitely a collection of recently clipped branches. She holds them carefully to avoid stabbing her fingers on their thorns.

Immediately, Percy’s focus snags on a hawthorn branch. The flowers have just opened. Pink creeps up from their centers, but for the most part, the petals remain a stark white, the color especially striking against the brilliant green of the leaves. There’s a branch that he thinks might be a honey locust, and then a third he can’t identify, but neither of them catches his attention the way the first one does. Still, it’s not his skin. 

Percy points to the hawthorn. “I’m partial to this.” It will require a different direction than the one he had been taking, but that’s good. The old one had not suited her. 

Vex sets the other branches down and runs her fingers over the hawthorn, avoiding the spines. “Oh, good. I did do a little research. White fades faster, apparently?”

“Mm. It can also look more like scarification than a tattoo.” She grimaces, and he inclines his head. “Not to my taste, either. But… I believe there are varieties of hawthorn with pink flowers. And it would give it a bit more color in general unless you want a brightly colored bird.”

They had talked about blue jays, but when he had shown Vex the first draft, she’d expressed doubts about the brilliant blues up against the green branches. 

The waiter arrives at that moment. Percy orders a sandwich and coffee.

Vex reaches into her purse this time and comes out with a handful of folded papers. She spreads them out on the table between them. They’re all birds—kites, hawks, sparrows, cardinals. Percy shuffles through them. After a minute, he sits back with a heavy sigh. 

“Tell me more about what you want from this tattoo.”

Vex shifts in her seat. “I… Do you always ask your clients such personal questions?”

“Is it personal?” Percy replies, as though he does not know already. Then he sighs. “I don’t meet most clients for lunch. And Keyleth would kill me if I didn’t do my best work for you.” His stomach twists, but he holds her gaze. He unbuttons one cuff and rolls it up to his elbow, and then does the same with the other. It’s fine, he reminds himself. He had his sleeves rolled up when they saw each other last. It’s  _fine._

Vex crosses her arms. “That’s Pike’s work, right? I’ve seen them before.”

“You have.” And then he holds out both arms. “Try to look through the ink.”

It’s not hard to spot, although the scars on his forearms are fainter than most of the rest, and less tightly clustered. Every day, Percy feels grateful for that. If the cuts had gone deeper and gone through a tendon, he thinks he might have—well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. But fainter is still relative, and Vex’s eyes widen at the sight of the old cut and burn marks. 

This is his least favorite part: does he let her draw her own conclusions or give her a hint? He remembers the bruises on Vex’s arms, on her stomach, does not allow himself to think about how she got them, and then decides. 

“I did not give myself these. A few are from accidents. Most…” he rolls his sleeves back down. “Well. I have an idea or two about what might make someone want to choose a few marks of their own.” 

“Thank you for telling me… Where is our coffee?” she cranes her neck and then lets out a pleased sound when she sees the waiter returning. “Oh, thank God.”

Percy winces. _Well done,_  he thinks, _she doesn’t need your problems, too_. They were only acquaintances before, sharing space because of a shared friend. At least the coffee and sandwiches provide a good excuse for them not to look at one another until some of the discomfort fades. There are reasons he wears long sleeves in all weather, reasons he keeps his shirts buttoned up to his throat. But when he looks up again, Vex seems unruffled. He takes a breath, clears his throat, and then picks up his sandwich. It hides the smile that curves across his mouth as Vex leans down and sneaks Trinket a bite of hard-boiled egg.

“What do you want to know?” She asks when she comes up.

“Whatever you feel comfortable saying. Branches and birds. What do they mean to you?” He reaches toward her, the gesture stiff.

The dog under the table growls, low and quiet. Percy and Vex look down at the same time. Trinket does not look particularly aggressive for a dog that sounds like he is maybe considering ripping into Percy’s leg like an ox bone. His ears prick, and he holds his head low. Big brown eyes turn toward Vex. 

“It’s okay, buddy. Shhh…”

Trinket sighs and drops his head back to his paws.

“Apologies.”

“Trinket’s a good boy. He doesn’t bite unless I tell him. And I don’t want him to bite you.” Vex smiles. “I like being outdoors. Animals. I love Trinket, but I don’t want him tattooed on me. And… I want something that’s free.”

That explains the birds. And the thorns? He bets it has everything to do with the idea of being dangerous to touch. And as for touching her, well, he’ll worry later about why he actually wants to do that. But Percy has never had a problem keeping his hands to himself.

He thinks for a moment and then reaches for the papers again. The one he wants is partly pinned under Vex’s coffee cup. She lifts it obligingly, a smile tugging up one corner of her lips. He blinks and looks back to the bird. It’s a small thing, grey and sharp-beaked, perching between turns on a leafless branch.

“I like that one,” Vex agrees. “Shrikes are vicious. But maybe it’s a little drab?”

“Fair. What if… where are my pencils?” He fishes the peach one out of his work bag. “What if we tinted the shading toward the flowers, and put one in its claws?”

She brightens. “Oh! I’d still like to see that—”

“Of course,” Percy replies, setting pencil to paper. It doesn’t blend as well it might have if he had drawn the bird, but it gives an idea.

“I like that,” she leans forward, close enough that Trinket shifts and Percy tenses. “And… I like the idea of a design on either side. I’m going to be living with this forever. What if...” she gestures at her stomach, this time describing one low shape, and one that arches. “With the birds in the branches.”

“I think that could be excellent.” 

It is not the most precise description, but Percy prefers having room for interpretation. So often, clients got rigid ideas of what they thought they wanted. It trapped both of them, and it never led to his best work. 

He flips the paper over, grabs a plain pencil, and starts sketching. Branch, twigs, thorns, the suggestions of leaves and flowers. An abstract shape where the birds will be, one sitting on the lower part of the branch, where it will sit just over the right side of Vex’s stomach muscles, the other flying high, marked over her ribs, low enough still that she can keep her shirt on while he inks it on her skin. 

There’s just one more problem.

Percy’s mouth works. “I don’t want you to think that I don’t believe you or trust your judgment. You’ve had time to think this decision through. So I doubt I have to remind you that I will have to touch you to do your tattoo. If you’d prefer to work with Pike—”

“Percy,” Vex cuts in.

He shuts up.

Vex holds out both hands. Beneath her chair, Trinket looks up but stays silent. Percy remains stock still as she reaches across the table, takes his hands in hers, and deliberately pulls them to her shoulders, her fingers warm against his wrists. “ _No_ , Percy. You're going to have to do the tattoo with your mind _._ ” Then some of the amusement slips sideways, and a softness creeps into her expression. “Thank you, though. For asking.”

Percy stares for a moment. All the bits and pieces of his hastily arranged thought lie scattered and picking them up hardly seems relevant. He ducks his head. “Right. No, thank you for—” his hands still rest on her shoulders. He nods toward them. “For letting me know. May I have my hands back, now?”

“Maybe.” Vex lets go.

Percy sits back in his chair, fighting a flush. That’s one way to answer that question, he supposes. And if she’s comfortable, well, he doesn’t really have much of a choice but to believe her. 

He picks up his coffee and takes a long swallow. It’s gone lukewarm in the time they’ve spent sitting and talking. It’s still perfectly good coffee. And perfectly good conversation. They hash out a few last details over the table, Trinket patiently waiting until Vex looks at her watch and lets fly with a string of muffled curses. 

“Sorry—it’s the end of my break.” She gets to her feet, collecting her credit card from the check holder and shoving it back into her purse. 

“Of course.” Percy stands, collecting his things at a less frantic pace. “I’ll see you for your appointment. Until then… well. Enjoy your week.”

“You too.”

Then she goes up on tiptoes and presses her lips against his cheek. She’s across the street by the time Percy finishes processing what has just happened. He’s done odd things on autopilot in the past—going through the motions of disassembling machinery, trying to put his phone in the autoclave before his brain caught up, drinking directly out of the coffee pot. He’s never kissed someone by accident, though. He supposes it’s a bit like Pike telling him about one of the times she accidentally said ‘I love you’ to the person taking her pizza order. He has never done that, either. This is nothing. And if it does prove to be something, they can talk about it when they see each other next. 

Percy checks one last time to make sure he has all his things, his papers, his phone, his pencils, his wallet, and then leaves for the Rising Sun. He isn’t going to tell Pike how exactly his meeting with Vex ended, he decides. It would just cause too much mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trinket is a malamute mix and also a Giant Baby. An adult dog, but... a baby.
> 
> As always, I'm on Ask-Ladyofrosefire on Tumblr.  
> This author thrives on comments!!! 🌸🌺🌹


	3. Outlines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vex comes in for the first appointment

Percy is in the front room when Vex comes in. She leans against the counter, cocking a hip. Her habitual braid falls over her shoulder, and she toys with its end as she looks around. Her gaze slides up and down him before it locks with his. He couldn’t say if she’s accusing him of something or giving him an invitation. He glances away and finds Pike directing a knowing look his direction. She waggles her eyebrows. Percy bites back a groan and a curse and goes to join Vex at the counter. 

“Afternoon.”

“Hello, Percy. Pike! How are you?”

“Oh, I’m good.” She smiles at Vex as she pulls up the appointment on the computer as if Percy had not checked and rechecked it a dozen times since that morning. “Okay, we just have a waiver for you and some care instructions before we get started. You’re our last appointment today… Percy, are you all set cleaning up in the back?”

“I’ve finished. Vex, would you like to see your design?”

She pauses in twisting one end of her hoodie’s drawstring around her fingers. “Oh, sure. Thanks.” Vex looks around. Her gaze flicks over the deep blue walls, the art hanging on them, the sign behind the counter. “I like that,” she laughs. 

Percy steps away as Pike turns to read it as though she does not know it by heart. “This establishment reserves the right to deny service to assholes.”

“Good for you,” Vex replies. “Have you had to send many people away?”

“Oh, a few. Percy, what was that one guy?”

“You’re going to have to narrow it down.” He returns to the counter and sets the finished design down on it. “Here you are.”

A flutter builds in his chest as he waits. The design, in general, has not changed since their conversation at the café. But it has all its colors, now, the shading and all the elements that make it come to life.

Vex smiles. It crinkles the corners of her eyes and tugs one corner of her mouth up higher than the other. She has dimples, too. Faint ones, but— He had missed them before. The smile banishes the lingering shadows from her face. 

“You like it, then?”

“I love it. Um… The back room, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well. We should go in, then.”

“Yes.”

“Great.”

“Um. Percy? The waiver?” Pike prompts him, setting it down on the counter. She slides it and a pen toward Vex. “Just read through that. It’s basic please-don’t-sue-us stuff. And then a print-out of care instructions that Percy’s going to tell you anyway. And when you leave, you pick up your ointment right back here. No allergies, right?”

“No allergies,” Vex confirms. She bends over the counter, tapping the pen against each line as she goes. And while she reads quickly, she also actually _reads_ the entire document, pausing to look at their framed certifications on the wall before scribbling down her signature, the surname a spike and a line that looks more like an arrow than a word.

“Have fun!” Pike calls. 

Vex lets out a breath of a laugh. Then she collects the paper and starts with him toward the workroom. Percy holds the door for her. 

The back room has the same color scheme as the front—smoke-grey walls, gold and navy accents, black counters and furniture, hard tile on the floor that makes the sound of Vex’s boots seem oddly loud. The light is strong. It has to be since there are no windows into the rest of the shop. Percy starts rolling up his sleeves, angling away from Vex. He’ll need to look eventually, he knows. He hears Vex unzip her boots and the sound of shifting fabric. Then she goes still. Percy makes his way to the work counter in the silence and opens the box of gloves. Vex draws in a breath, loud in the closed space. It shudders back out of her. 

“Percy. Is there a restroom?” she asks, bending and pulling her boots back on. 

“At the back. The door should be unlocked.”

“I just—” She stops.

He nods. “Of course.”

Vex ducks out of the room. Before the door can close, Percy stops it. Then he leans out, catches Pike’s eye, and tips his head toward Vex’s retreating back. Pike presses her finger over her lips. Both of them wait. Water runs, and the door remains closed. With a sigh, Percy ducks back into the workroom. He has nothing he can do except wait. Vex will leave, or she won’t. She’ll reschedule, or she won’t. Only—this time, Percy has to stop himself from going to the door and checking every few seconds. It’s only his business what she puts on her body if she asks him to do it, but—

And then Vex knocks on the doorframe. 

“Come in.”

The door closes again with a soft click. Percy steps away from the air dryer, shaking the last few drops of water off his hands. Vex’s face is slightly wet, but her eyes don’t appear red. She calls up a smile so striking he might not know it was fake if he hadn’t heard her struggling to breathe a few minutes before. Then she moves over beside the chair and kicks her boots back off. Her leggings go next. Percy averts his gaze automatically as she wiggles out of them. When he looks back, he finds her sitting in the chair in her shirt and cropped hoodie and a pair of soft, cotton shorts cut low enough that he won’t have to ask her to move them to ink the bottom of the tattoo. Thank every God that might exist. 

Vex sits, pulls her hoodie over her head, and moves to drape it across her thighs. 

“I have spare aprons. Here. So you don’t get anything on that.” He takes one and passes it to her to use as a blanket. It’s relatively warm in the studio, given the frequency of partial nudity, but. Well. Percy puts his apron on and then sits down in the chair next to hers. “Alright. I need you to roll your shirt up and tuck it under your brassier.”

Vex chortles. “My _brassier._ Oh, of course.”

Percy refuses to blush, for all the good that does him. 

She’s still chuckling as she rolls her shirt up her ribcage. The bruises are gone, leaving her skin smooth and even. Vex tucks her shirt firmly out of the way before settling back against the chair. 

“I’m going to lean you back, now,” Percy warns her before fishing up the control and carefully repositioning the chair. 

“...I feel a little like I’m at the dentist,” Vex confesses.

“I’ll try not to take offense at that.”

It gets another laugh out of her, and Percy smiles. He pulls on a pair of gloves. Then he opens the package around a disposable razor. The sound of the crinkling plastic fills the workroom. Vex adjusts the apron over her thighs. As he starts shaving, Vex twitches, stomach flexing under his other hand. 

“Ticklish?”

“Not usually,” she shrugs. “I’ll be fine.” 

She doesn’t move while he runs an alcohol wipe across her skin from just above the waistband of her underwear all the way to her solar plexus to be safe. She watches him sort out the stencil, handling the paper very, very gingerly in his gloved hands. Just as carefully, he lays it against her skin. 

“Check in the mirror that you’re happy with the placement.”

“Ooh!” Vex hops up, catching the apron before it falls, and pads barefoot to the mirror. There, she turns back and forth for a while, hands not quite brushing her skin as she checks placement and size. “Percy, it’s _gorgeous_.”

“I’m glad you like it. Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” She catches the look on his face and smiles. “Yes, I’m ready.” Vex settles onto the chair again and lets out a long breath. “I’d say ‘do your worst,’ but that seems unlucky.”

“We aren’t relying on luck today. Do what you like.” 

Percy smooths vaseline over Vex’s skin and the stencil marks. Then he picks up the coil. Her ribs rise as she inhales, smooth and deliberate. He lets her exhale before he sets the needle to her skin. Her fingers tighten on the chair’s arms. Otherwise, she holds perfectly still. Percy starts on the lowest edge of the branch, working as gently as he can. 

“Over bone is the worst, in my experience. Let me know if you need a moment.

“I will.” After the first minute, her hands unclench. “So, I googled you. Back when Keyleth first introduced us.”  
“...Ah.” He’s not surprised, really. Vex seems the kind of person to do her research. Still, he does not look up from his work.  
She continues. “How does a lord end up with a tattoo parlor?”

It isn’t the question he expected. He doesn’t usually indulge clients in idle conversation, not when his most persistent ghost is a matter of record. Percy pushes the thought aside before his hands can begin to shake. He wipes away blood and ink and continues. 

“Oh, it’s a long story.”

“I have time.” When he glances at her, she has one brow arched high. “If you don’t want to tell me, Percy, you can say so.”

“...That’s fair. No, I… I enjoyed building things when I was younger. I wound up looking into tattoo machines. And then the process, and… Well. Here I am. Pike and I decided to go into business together.”

“Pike covers scars.”

“Yes.” She’s seen his arms. 

“And you do…?” Vex trails off. 

“Well. This. Other things. I do prefer realism, and I’ve been told I have a light touch.” He pauses to wipe away ink and vaseline and to apply a layer of the latter to the next patch of skin. 

Clean trace the beginnings of a branch over Vex’s right hip. He’ll do as much as he can with this needle, switch when necessary, and try not to break either his headspace or Vex’s. She sighs heavily as he lifts the coil for a moment.

“Are you alright?”

“Mmm. You know the feeling where you eat something really spicy, and it hurts, but it mostly feels great?” Vex asks, stretching and resettling. 

“No. I… don’t tolerate spice particularly well,” Percy admits. “But yes, endorphins.”

Vex lets out another peal of laughter. He likes her laugh. Despite how she was when she came in the first time, it’s bright and unrestrained, unselfconscious. A witch’s cackle or a bird’s call. The word ‘shrike’ is related to ‘shriek.’ It feels appropriate. 

When he looks again at her face, Percy finds her watching him, a curious tilt to her mouth. He holds her gaze for only a moment before fixing his focus on the branches and thorns slowly growing across her hip and over her stomach. 

He has an abrupt and wildly inappropriate urge to bend and kiss the smooth skin beneath her navel. 

Percy sits up straight. That. That does not _happen_. He has had attractive people on this chair before and has seen more. Kashaw having Pike work the mess of scars on his arm into plates of armor. Zahra, shirtless and daring Percy to blush as he set the phases of the moon between her breasts. The black roses that curled from Lilith’s thigh to one side of her ass. And Vex is uniquely beautiful, yes. But he’s a damn professional. 

“Something wrong?” she asks.

“No, sorry. Momentary crick.”

If she can tell he’s lying, she lets it slide. Percy bends over her again, now acutely aware of how his hand presses against her skin to hold it taut. He bites back a few choice curses and hopes Vex can see more of the top of his head than his face. 

She shifts slowly, giving a twitch of her fingers to warn him before she raises her head. “Who did the bleach job on your hair? It’s good.”

Percy hesitates a moment before answering. “...It’s natural, actually.”  
Vex pauses, leaving the buzzing of the coil to fill the intervening silence. “...How old are you?”

“Google didn’t tell you that.”

“You can’t believe everything you read on the internet, Percy.”

It occurs to him that even if he had wanted to stop himself from smiling, he likely could not have. “True. I’m twenty-four. You?”  
“You never ask a lady her age. But not much older than you.” she pauses. “Twenty-seven.”  
“I wouldn’t have guessed.”  
“Flatterer.” She raises a hand, and for a moment, he thinks she means to touch his hair, but she stops, leaving Percy’s heart entirely too excited about this perfectly mundane situation.

He clears his throat. “Does talking help?”

“Yeah. Why? Is it a problem?”

“No, not at all. I just— don’t normally. This is actually agreeable.” It hits him a moment too late how bloody _rude_ that sounds, but, well. It’s a bit late for that.

Vex doesn’t seem to mind. She lies back, and he continues his work, grappling for something else to fill the space. It’s possible that Pike has a point and that he needs to get out more.

“What does Trinket think of where you work?” he asks finally. It’s not ‘what do you do,’ which always strikes him as more than slightly rude even if they’ve been introduced socially. But he finds himself wondering, regardless, and all he can remember is that it involves animals. 

“Oh, he loves it. Well. He loves most of it. I work at the Parchwood Reserve Zoo. Mostly with the big mammals. He loves the bears.”

“Recognizes kindred spirits, clearly.”

“Oh, of course. He fucking hates the monkeys, though…”

They go on like that, bantering back and forth while Percy works his way up the tattoo. Branches, leaves, thorns, flowers—they all take shape under his hands. Vex has to pause twice, but only for a short break, first to stretch, and then to hiss and swear as he makes his way across her other hipbone. Then she hangs onto the arms of the chair and breathes through it. But other than that, she seems calmer than he’s seen her since Keyleth introduced them, a slight smile at her mouth. Her expression seems more satisfied than peaceful.

During one of the lapses in conversation, Pike knocks on the door. 

“Yes?” he calls, setting the coil down and flexing his hand. 

She pokes her head in. “Hey, JB called. Can you handle closing up?”

“Of course. Just flip the sign around.” He waves a hand at her. “Tell her I said hello, and that I’d be happy to lend her another book any time.”

“No problem. Thanks.”

“You’re more than welcome.”

“Family?” Vex asks after Pike has closed and presumably locked the door to the shop after her. 

“Mm.”

“Vax might come in at some point, actually. He’s been looking for a good tattoo shop.” She comments. He makes some noise, clearly, because Vex raises her head. “What?”

“...your parents named you Vex and Vax.”

“Says Percival Fred—” she pauses, “Lord Percival Fredrickstein… Von… fuck.”

“Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III. It would have been a bit more effective if you’d remembered all of it.”

“Would it?” she laughs, and he pulls the coil away so that her shaking doesn’t turn his lines shaky. “How old were you before you could say the whole thing?”

“Six.”

She laughs again. Then she takes a deep breath, holds it, and exhales deliberately. “Okay. I’m done. You can keep going.”

He waits another moment, just in case, before going back to outlining the beak of the second shrike. He has the bird posed so that it looks poised to dive and spear some unfortunate animal, and it means getting the hook on the beak right is crucial. When that’s done, he moves onto the wing. The outline connects. It looks, he thinks, good enough that he wouldn’t entirely blame Vex if she never chose to come back for him to fill it in. Not entirely. The color will bring life to this piece.

It’s with no small amount of pride that he sits back in his chair, rolls the tension from his shoulders, and sets down the coil. “Have a look.”

Vex gets up slowly. There’s redness, of course, but he was careful. There’s no blowout, and no bruises waiting to blossom, only clean lines and thorns and a pair of sharp-beaked birds. He catches sight of her smile in the mirror before she faces him again. His breath hitches in his chest. With an effort, he clears his throat and turns his face away. The needles go in the proper disposal, along with everything else that got blood on it, including his apron. He snaps on a fresh pair of gloves for safety’s sake before beckoning to Vex. 

“I need to put something on that and cover it. You’ll be able to take it off by tomorrow morning. And I wouldn’t get it wet before then.”

“I did my reading.”

She approaches him. He could stand, direct her back to the table, but everything he needs is at hand already. Percy stays seated. Vex pads across the floor in her sock feet—he really should have told her to put her shoes back on, but it seems late now—until she stands before him. A hiss of breath escapes her as he dabs ointment over the base of one branch. 

“Did I hurt you?” 

“No, no. It’s fine. Keep going.”

He nods and then goes very, very still as Vex’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder. It makes sense, of course. She’s likely woozy from endorphins and looking to check her balance. Except she feels perfectly steady. Her hand remains, bleeding warmth through his shirt, while he continues to cover the fresh ink. Percy braces his free hand on her thigh as he works, first hesitating, and then holding on firmly but gently when Vex swats at him with her other hand and tells him to stop tickling her. 

“Pike left a bottle of that for you at the counter,” Percy tells her as he tapes down the bandage. “There’s an instruction label. Don’t rub or scratch, and wash with lukewarm water. You may want to avoid putting that under a spray for the first twenty-four hours or so.”

“No problem.”

“When you’re out of the ointment, use—”

“Percy?”

“Yes?” He looks up and finds Vex smiling down at him. Something about it makes his stomach flip over. “This is all in the papers Pike had me read, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Then I promise I will take excellent care of your work.” Her hand slides from his shoulder to his chest. 

There’s a wildness in her eyes that makes him feel almost hunted. Or if hunted had a kinder twin, perhaps. Cat and mouse, except he’s the most willing mouse that has ever breathed. Percy’s mouth opens of its own accord. He looks up at her, his heart kicking away behind his ribcage, palms damp with sweat under the blue latex of his gloves. His adam’s apple bobs as Vex’s fingers skim his throat. They skip over the collar of his shirt and brush every button on the way down. 

“Percy?” She asks, her fingers hovering over his belt. 

He offers a mute, dry-mouthed nod, and her hand settles against the front of his pants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Author Thrives on Comments 💜💘💜
> 
> I'm on ask-ladyofrosefire on tumblr if you want to chat!


	4. Coil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vex jumps the gun. So to speak.

Percy’s breath punches out of him, not on a sound, but hard enough that Vex clearly feels it on her stomach above her bandage. 

“Percy?” she asks again, a little less playfully.

“Um,” he says. His tongue feels thick and heavy, and while he understands logically that blood must still be reaching his brain, he’s not entirely sure it’s _enough_. “I’m fine. This—”

This is probably four or five or twenty different health violations, honestly. But if he can sterilize the room after it’s been bloody, he can manage. This. Sweet Gods. 

“Are you really fine?” Vex—shrinks in on herself, shadows coming back fast, her hand sliding away.

He still wants to kiss her skin, even with the plastic over it. This whole _idea_ is ludicrous, idiotic, even. Logically, he should stop her, forget about this, and not see her again until she comes back for her color. _If_ she comes back. But Vex doesn’t seem the type to run and he does not remember the last time he  _wanted_ like this. It feels like lightning, and he doesn’t care to find if he can let go of it just yet. 

Percy catches her wrist. “Yes. I’m surprised. I’m—not sure—with your tattoo’s placement—”

“Oh, no. I don’t actually have a condom on me.” She laughs, then, ducking her head and reaching up to tuck a stray strand of her hair behind her ear. Her other hand rests high on the inside of his thigh. “You’re sure?”

“Very.” 

He still shudders as Vex undoes his belt, button, and fly. By the time he thinks to help her, her fingers have found the grey cotton of his boxers. Percy jolts, gasping. Then he sees the gloves on his hands. It’s—clinical and it makes his brain screech and crackle with static, so he takes his hands off of Vex and pulls off first one glove, and then the other. They land on the work table. With a soft laugh, she pulls one of his hands back to her thigh. 

“Do you want me to—?”

“No. No, not… Just—hold on, this angle is shit,” She mutters, drawing him to his feet. 

They turn, pressed close together until Percy’s legs bump against the tattoo chair. He sits automatically. Vex crowds in close, one knee between his, hands still on him. His fingers squeak against the chair’s cover. 

“Breathe, Percy.”

He does, inhaling sharply as Vex’s hand finds its way inside his boxers. She bends to him, lips brushing his as she draws his cock out. Heat rushes up his neck and over his face. Percy watches as she dips her fingers into the container of vaseline—he probably needs to throw that out, now, or find another use for it—and goes to touch him again. It’s a little greasy, and he grimaces right up until the moment she moves her hand, and the smooth pull of skin on skin makes his mouth drop open. Vex has him hard in her hand fast enough that it makes his head spin. She laughs against the corner of his mouth and kisses him again.

“Fuck,” he gasps, and “Vex—”

“Tell me to stop.”

“What?” He pulls back, blinking. “I—really don’t want you to.”

Vex grins, slow and positively wolfish, her hand still moving on him. “Darling, tell me to stop.”

He loses his breath to the slide of her fingers, the brilliant shock of her thumb rubbing back and forth, back and forth. His knees shake. Percy clings to the arm of the chair and inhales hard. “Stop,” he whispers.

She does. It’s immediate. Not jerking away or moving as though he’d pushed her, no sign of hurt, only her hand leaving him, hovering an inch or so away. He groans with the loss of it, and with relief. His hand comes up to muffle the sound a moment late. Vex doesn’t stop him, exactly, but she does lean in to press her mouth to his. He returns the kiss to the best of his ability—and he’s done _that_ at least. Percy tangles his fingers in her hair and teases his tongue past her lips. She lingers a moment before drawing away again. She has that smile back, and he knows what she expects.  

“Keep going.”

Vex takes him in hand again. This time, her rhythm is brisk enough to leave him scrabbling at the chair. It’s _too_ fast. Another few moments and he might spill over her fingers. Even if she doesn’t need him later, he’d rather last longer than five minutes. 

“Stop,” he breathes. 

Again, she pulls her hand away. A whine breaks from Percy’s throat, and his forehead comes to rest on her shoulder. He waits until he no longer feels about to fall apart before nodding. When he tries to muffle his next groan, Vex tugs his mouth back to hers. It’s easier to let her feel the gasps and soft sounds she pulls from him than hear them. They bounce off the walls anyway. His cheeks burn a brilliant red. And Vex—she’s still smiling, biting at his lower lip and his jaw and his throat and—

“ _Wait, wait—_ ” She pets at his hair and rests her hand on his thigh until he stops trembling and whispers “please.”

He shudders again as she brings him back to the edge. It’s—sharp and demanding and he almost wants to tug away from it. Percy waits for the swell of panic, the nausea. But it doesn’t come. His breath catches and rises, shuddering in his lungs. Vex swallows the noises he makes. He doesn’t beg again; she doesn’t give him time. Percy spills over her fingers with his head thrown back and Vex’s teeth at his throat.  

After, he slumps into the chair with a cracking groan. “Gods,” he breathes, and then, “ _fuck_.”

Vex laughs, soft and delighted, right against his shoulder. Then she steps back. She wipes her fingers on a paper towel and passes another piece to him. With numb fingers, he takes it. It’s too rough and drags almost painfully, but he gets the worst of the mess. There’s still a slight slick of vaseline on his skin when he zips his pants back up. 

Percy scrubs his hand over his mouth and then looks at Vex. “Do you want me to—”

She pauses in untucking her shirt from her bra to look at him. Her tattoo disappears under the worn cotton. Then she shrugs and goes to one knee to collect her leggings. “No thanks, darling. I—you know.”

“I do.” Or he thinks he does, maybe. Either way. “You don’t have to explain.”

She pulls her leggings back on, wincing as she smooths the waistband. Then she tugs her boots back on, drawing up the zippers. The hoodie goes over her head. 

“Thanks.”

Then Percy follows her out to the register. They move on autopilot, care products and cash changing hands, the chime of the register loud in the empty studio. Vex reaches across the counter, takes Percy by the front of his shirt, and draws him in so she can press her lips to his cheek. 

“Thank you. I’ll… see you in a few weeks,” Percy replies. “Take good care of that, and… call or email if there’s a problem.”

“I will. Thank you, Percy.” 

And she leaves. There’s a bus station around the corner, and she heads in that direction. Percy returns to the workshop to wipe everything down. He does it twice and loads everything not disposable into the autoclave. He washes his hands again. The tub of vaseline goes into the trash. Maybe it’s wasteful, but he cannot think of anything better to do with it, and he can’t use it on someone else now Vex has had her fingers in it. And her fingers—

He takes a moment to sit in his work chair with his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees and laugh and laugh until his stomach hurts and his head pounds and he feels weak in every part of his body. Then Percy hauls in a long, deep breath, gets to his feet, and goes to his car. He has to turn around to lock up the door. Another moment in the car, another space of panting and laughing, and then back to his apartment. He needs a shower, and dinner, and a very stiff drink. And he needs to sleep. 

Percy drops off earlier than he usually manages that night and sleeps until his alarm goes off the next morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey remember when Vex died briefly and then stole a broom (bcs it was a good tactical decision fIGHT ME) to feel alive again? #MyOtherRideIsADeRolo
> 
> The Author Thrives on Comments 💗💞💗


	5. Bruise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vex's first shading appointment does not end as planned. TW in author's note.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: emotional abuse, threats of violence, a brief mention of sexual assault. As per the tags, none of these things are between Percy and Vex.

He gets an email from Vex the next afternoon. 

 

_Percy,_

_I wanted to thank you again for your beautiful work. Trinket tried to lick it. Don’t worry, I didn’t let him. Tattoo stings like a bitch, but I love it so much. Thank you. Of course, I want to see it finished. But I realize I may have made you uncomfortable. If you don’t want to work with me anymore, I understand. Just pass on the name of someone you think could color this piece, someone you trust. Hopefully, I’ll see you for our next appointment._

_-Vex_

 

He replies immediately. Of course, he wants her to come back. It may be a little… odd working with her after what they did together, but it’s not as though he regrets that decision, not if she’s willing to return to the shop. It’s not as though she makes him feel unsafe, anything but. _Besides_ , he writes, _I’d hate to see someone else try to finish my work._  

He does wonder, after, if it sounds too possessive, but at least it’s honest. 

 

Enough appointments fall between then and Vex’s color to keep him busy, and to keep him from— he’s lying to himself. He’s obsessing. He practices the shading for Vex’s hawthorn flowers when he has a moment, and more often than not, finds himself remembering the feeling of her hands, her lips, before… Well. 

There are ghosts that make dealing with those things more complicated than he can manage at that time of night. 

He’s sure to get a good night’s rest the night before Vex comes into the shop again. He has an appointment before her. Jarrett’s in getting linework up his left forearm. Percy finishes the bit of it that’s calligraphy, wraps the tattoo, and sends him to Pike while he cleans up. He finds Vex casting a glance at Jarrett’s ass as he leaves. He doesn’t blame her, and he has no real right to be jealous. Percy reminds himself of that as he approaches the counter. 

“Afternoon.”

“Percy!” She reaches up and rests her hand on his shoulder, squeezing just firmly enough to make his insides turn over. “Hi. Let’s get some color?”

“Let’s. Do you want to do one side, or try to get both parts even?”

“Mmm… Just the one side. I don’t want everything to hurt.” She lingers a moment longer before making her way to the workroom, kicking off her boots, and rolling up her tank top. 

“You’ve taken good care of this,” Percy observes, settling into his work chair.

“Of course. It’s good work.”

He grins at her as he pulls on a pair of gloves. She stretches out, and Percy prepares the tattoo machine for shading. He falters when he sees the fresh container of vaseline. A flush steals up the back of his neck. Percy tamps it down. If she does not mention it, he won’t, either. It’s not as though she’s looking for a relationship, even if he did have any idea what he would do with one. 

“Ready?” He waits for her nod before turning on the coil. “Well, then. Let’s continue.”  

 

In the middle of wrapping Vex’s tattoo, the front door opens. They get walk-ins from time to time, but they’ve nearly finished for the day. Vex picked the latest appointment, like last time. A moment later, he hears Pike’s cheerful voice. 

“Hi! Can I help you? We’re not doing more tattoos today, but if you’re looking for a piercing, I can help you.”

There’s no audible response, but the door does not open again. Percy supposes they’re looking through the available studs for piercings. He finishes up with Vex and gets to his feet. She stayed off of hers while she pulls her leggings back on and shoes her feet into her boots. This time, she leaves her shirt tucked up and her hoodie draped over her arm. 

“I told Pike I’d show her the progress,” she says as she opens the door. “She asked me about it before you came out.”

“Vex’ahlia.”

Her hand goes white-knuckled on the door.

Percy looks past her. A man rises from one of the chairs in the corner, perhaps forty, white, black-haired, pale. If the shift in Vex’s posture had not indicated something was off, his expression would have.

“What have you done to yourself?” He asks, and while it’s quiet, the man’s raspy voice carries. 

“I don’t think that’s your business.” 

“Running again. I knew when I heard you’d come here that you weren’t thinking clearly, but I thought… Why did you do this to yourself?”

Pike gets down from her high stool. “Excuse. What’s your name, and what the _fuck_ do you think you’re doing?”

Percy silently lays his hand over Vex’s and squeezes. She draws in a hard breath. “Pike, this is Saundor. The one I broke up with.”

“Don’t be hasty, Vex’ahlia. You and I have done so much together. I’ve been helpful to you. And you need me.”

“I need you?” her voice shakes, and Percy wants to kill the thing that makes her sound like this.

“Sweet, sweet Vex’ahlia. Just think of where you would be without me. Or your brother, for that matter. Who else do you have to turn to? Does your precious twin know how you’ve… sullied yourself?”

Blood roars in Percy’s ears. He turns and looks at Pike, and she looks back. If Percy so much as opens his mouth, it will be nothing but smoke and rage, and he will _shoot this man_ just like he shot— They don’t keep a gun in the parlor, but he has Diplomacy. He has to move away from Vex to grab it, so he nods to Pike, tilting his head toward where the taser sits alongside her baseball bat, just in case. Sometimes it pays to be paranoid. But if he pulls a weapon, it’s assault. He’s well aware of that. 

Pike goes for the phone. Percy would step forward, but Vex shakes as she pulls her shirt down, so he stays by her side. 

“We’re closing. You should leave. Vex’ahlia, you’re welcome to stay as long as you need, of course. Until your ride is here.”

“Thank you, Percy.” 

Saundor takes a step forward. Pike’s hand twitches toward the baseball bat. “That stolen monstrosity you call transportation? I told you to get rid of it. I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself again. If you struck your head…”

“Fuck off,” the words rip free of Vex’s throat and bounce off of the walls. “Just— _go_. I don’t know how the  _fuck_ you followed me here, but you—you go. I am not—you—it’s none of your business what I do. Percy, is she calling the police?”

“Better,” he keeps his eyes fixed on Saundor. “Grog. He’ll be here in a minute. He works maybe a block over.” And if Percy knew him at all, he would come at a run. 

“This is all unnecessary. All this drama. How desperate for attention are you? If we leave now, I promise, we can let it all go,” Saundor cut in. 

“Vex,” Pike puts the phone down. Her tone and eyes both hold cold steel. “You don’t have to go anywhere with anyone. But you, mister, better get out of my shop.”

Vex squares her shoulders. “Thank you. I’m staying right here.” She cannot meet Saundor’s eyes, but she gets close, and her voice holds steady. “Get the fuck out.” 

“I expected so… much… better from you.” Saundor’s voice picks up a growl that makes the acid twist in Percy’s stomach and fury gnaw at his spine. “I thought I’d taught you to _stay down_.”

He strides toward them. Percy moves to put himself and the open workroom door in front of Saundor. Percy is a tall man, not particularly muscular, but he has a full handspan on this oily bastard. He lifts his chin. If he could, he would set this man on fire. But it’s not his place to speak, much less escalate the situation. 

Saundor, however, has no such compunction. He quickens his pace and raises a fist. “Get out of my way.”

It’s at that moment that the shop door bangs open. Saundor turns. Percy does not.

“Get the fuck away from them.” Grog growls. 

Percy is tall. Grog is taller and broad enough that he fully fills the doorway. 

“Stay out of this.” Saundor spits. “What I do with Vex’ahlia is none of your concern.”

Grog turns and looks at Vex. “That you he’s talkin’ about?”

“I’m Vex.”

“Grog. Do you want him here?”

“Fuck, no.”

“You heard the lady.” He cracks his knuckles as he advances on Saundor. “Now get the fuck out. B’fore I crack your skull.”

“She is—”

Grog steps up into Saundor’s face and roars. “ _Nobody cares_! Nobody fuckin’ asked you, so get out. Before I make you. I’d have fun making you leave.” He pushes the thick-muscled bulk of his chest and shoulders forward, into Saundor’s space and bares his teeth. 

Neither moves. Pike steps up to join him, expression steely. Grog opens his mouth, and a sound like a growl rumbles out of him. It makes the hairs on the back of Percy’s neck stand on end and drains the color from Saundor’s face. 

Saundor falters. Then he turns and shoves not between Grog and Pike, but directly at her. She staggers as he collides with her, collects herself, and then hauls her leg up and rams it full into Saundor. Percy isn’t sure from this angle whether she caught his stomach or his groin. Either way, he drops to the tiles. She stands over him, her hands in tight fists and rage written across her usually kind features. Then she bends down, grabs him by the collar of his shirt, and hauls him close to her face. 

“Look at me. Vex, is this Saundor Saller?”

Vex steps around Percy, nodding. “Yes.”

“Right. Thank you, Vex. And you.” Her voice never rises, but the hairs on Percy’s arms stand up at the steel in it. “If I _ever_ see you here again, or hear your name, or hear that you even  _looked_ at Vex, I swear that I will personally make sure that you never see the light of day again. And the second I hear someone’s finally ready to put you in prison where you belong, I will be there, making sure you never get out.”

Then she steps aside. Saundor scrambles upright, and Grog breathes down his neck until he’s back on the street and hurrying away. 

“Are you alright?” Grog asks, looking from Pike to Vex and back. There’s no sign of the rage that had contorted his face only a moment before. “Would’ve hit him, but you got that covered, Pike. I could still go beat his face in if you want.”

“I’m okay,” Pike replies, reaching over to pat him on the arm. “Vex?”

“I’m— that was—I’m sorry you had to see that. That was— I need to sit down, I’m so sorry.” 

Vex’s knees shake. Silently, Percy offers her his arm. She takes it and lets him walk her over to the cluster of chairs. The leather creaks as she sits. Her shaking gets worse if anything. She worries at the end of her braid with one hand. She tugs at her shirt, almost goes to rub at the tattoo, and then stops. Percy sinks down to one knee in front of her. 

“Can I get you anything?” he asks. 

Vex shakes her head. 

Percy sighs. “Gods. What an  _asshole_ he is. I think Pike might have kicked his dick in.” 

That gets a hiccuping laugh from her and a small, cracked smile. “Bit of a small target.”

“She has excellent aim.” He pauses, glancing toward where Pike and Grog stand conversing too quietly for their words to carry. Pike’s car is tiny, and Grog doesn’t drive. “Vex, I… expect you don’t want to take the bus.”

“Not really.”

“Then… may I drive you home? Or—near to your home. I’ll ask Pike to come along if that will make you more comfortable.”

“I don’t want a fuss.”

“Then just me?”

She hesitates. He can’t blame her, considering. He opens his mouth to offer to call her a cab instead when Vex nods. “Thank you. Just to the nearest corner, maybe? But thank you.”

“Let me get my coat.” Percy pushes himself back to his feet. 

When he returns with his coat tossed over his arm, Pike is handing Vex a new bottle of lotion. Vex leans down to kiss her on the cheek before turning. 

“My car’s around back.” 

Despite the lingering warmth, Vex continues to shiver in her hoodie. Percy offers her the coat. Vex takes it with a murmured ‘thank you’ and pulls it on, letting the deep blue wool swallow her. The sleeves hang past her hands. Her shivering eases a little. And even though it makes his spine prickle, he lets her fall a step behind him as they make their way to the parking lot behind the building. 

Percy unlocks the car, and Vex lets out a whistle long enough to make it clear it’s not entirely serious. So he opens the passenger door for her and gestures not comically, but with deliberate poise and a smile curling one corner of his mouth. It feels good to see her joking again. A feeling which evaporates as soon as he gets into the car next to her and Vex’s shoulders slump. 

“He’s going to be so angry. Fuck, I should—” she starts fumbling at her purse. 

“Vex, he’s a dick.” Despite his best efforts, his voice comes out sharp. Percy winces. “Sorry. I mean— what I mean to say—”

He stops then because he has no real right to say anything, here. Except if she goes back, Saundor will kill her. Percy had been eye to eye with the murderous rage on Saundor’s face back in the shop when he stood between him and Vex’ahlia. Vex watches him now, her arms wrapped around her ribs and a furrow between her brows. 

Percy sighs. “You did the right thing.”

“Thanks.” She starts to hug her purse against herself and then stops with a wince. “...fuck, I forgot about seatbelts. What a day for stupidity, right?”

She puts it on anyway, and he pulls out of the parking lot. It’s only a minute before her hand dips back into her purse. 

“Why don’t you call Keyleth? Or text.”

“I don’t want to worry her.” That forced smile is back, along with an artificial brightness to Vex’s voice. “You know how she is. She’d think she has to fix it, and she can’t, so then she’d feel guilty…”

“You don’t have to tell her,” Percy offers, keeping his eyes fixed on the road. He can feel Vex’s stare on the side of his head, so he continues. “I— I don’t know if she’s worked it out, what it means when I ask her if she has new pictures from her birdfeeders, but… It. Well.”

“Takes your mind off things.”

“Quite.” 

“I think she’d figure it out. Or— I don’t know. I can’t. She’s. Keyleth’s lovely. I just… I can’t right this second.” She worries at the strap of her bag, turning to look out the window.

“You don’t have to,” Percy pauses, frowns, and then glances to her again. “Could I trouble you for directions?”

“Oh. Of course.”

Vex points him to the correct streets. The drive takes longer than he expected. Rush hour passed already, but getting to Vex’s part of town gets them most of the way to the zoo where she works. She remains withdrawn. Every so often, she tugs the seatbelt away from her stomach. Eventually, they turn onto her street. His is easily the nicest car visible. Street lamps break up the black, the yellow light sliding off side view mirrors and the frames of bicycles. A motorbike sits in front of one building, a rusted thing mostly painted blue, low slung, with a promise of aerodynamics and speed if only someone would do something to keep it from falling apart. Saundor’s words come back at the sight of it. _That stolen monstrosity you call transportation,_ he had said. It makes anxiety stab through him again, even though Vex obviously has not been _using_ the bloody thing. 

“Do you want to come up? Just until my brother gets home?” Vex asks.

Percy turns toward her. He considers asking her why and then looks at her purse where her phone sits. Then he thinks about the letters Pike filters from the Rising Sun’s mail every so often. He doubts he would want to be alone after reading one of those. Or, no, he might, but it would be a bad idea to allow him to be. So he nods and gets out of the car. 

Vex gives the motorbike a pat on her way up to the door. Percy gives it a wide berth, although he does note its make before following her inside. 

Trinket greets them at the door. Immediately, Vex goes to her knees, slinging her arms around his neck and ruffling his thick fur while she coos to him. He sniffs Vex all over, tail whipping back and forth, before turning to consider Percy. The inspection lasts the space of a few seconds. Then Trinket licks the side of Vex’s face. She lets out a squawk and gets to her feet. Trinket stays close by her side as she makes for the couch, beckoning for Percy to follow. And he does. 

It’s a cozy apartment with a slightly worn, but comfortable, couch covered in a sheet dusted grey with Trinket’s hair. The mismatched but well cared for furniture gives an impression of flea markets and a good eye. Vex’s, if he has to guess. It feels homey and intimate if maybe a little cramped. Percy settles down next to Vex on the couch. Trinket sprawls at her feet. 

“When do you think Vax will be back?”

Vex shrugs. “A few hours. He said he was going to see Gilmore—his… They’re not quite dating. It’s complicated.” She scratches Trinket between the ears and says nothing for a long moment before drawing in a deep breath. A bright smile cracks across her face. “I never thought to ask why Saundor was in the station at that exact moment. Silly of me, really.”

“The station?” Percy asks softly. 

“I—met him when I was trying to keep Vax out of prison. It was nothing, bullshit charge, asshole cop, but he’d been caught before, and—quotas and bullshit like that. And. Saundor was there. And he offered to help. I think he bribed someone. He told me he bribed someone.”

“And he… blackmailed you.”

“No, that’s would have been too obvious for him.” 

She doesn’t elaborate, and he doesn’t ask. He does not personally know this particular form of intimacy for violence; he has been that fortunate. But he understands cycles and patterns and the various ways that people can control others. Saundor dressed like old money, and yet that motorbike looks on the verge of falling apart. It doesn’t take a great deal to piece together what happened. Asking her for details would only be cruel. Percy waits until, finally, Vex’s shoulders slump, and she lets out a long, ragged breath.

"And finally, he, well—you saw the bruises."

“Mm.” 

Keyleth would pull Vex into a hug if she were here. It would be awkward and bony and smell of the earth from her flowerpots and lemongrass and sage. But she’s not here, and Vex won’t call her. Slowly, he slides a hand across the couch cushions, palm up. Vex looks at it. 

“Thank you for taking me home.”

“It’s the least I could do.”

“The least you could have done was call me a cab.”

It hadn’t even occurred to him. The idea of leaving Vex alone or of sending her somewhere with a stranger had been so out of the question that it had slid entirely from his mind. Percy shrugs. His gaze skips from Vex to Trinket to the tv to the shelf full of books on the far wall. He’s not some savior, and he does not want to be. He doubts that’s what Vex wants, either. 

She takes his hand, interlacing their fingers. Slowly, she raises them until his fingers brush her cheek. Percy’s throat goes tight. 

“Vex…?”

She shifts forward, the cushions sinking beneath her knees. Then she settles smoothly into his lap. Her free hand curls around the back of his neck. Her legs bracket his, squeezing his hips. 

Percy lets her kiss him once before he turns his face away. “Vex, no.”

She stills, lips by his cheek, and then sits up, sits back. A frown creases her forehead. When she starts to let go of his hand, Percy squeezes once. She does not pull away, but her mouth twists. “When someone says no, they usually want you to get off of them. I hope you’re not just putting up with this for me, darling.”

“Vex, I—do want you,” he starts. The idea of sinking into the couch appeals more than a little. “This. It’s, ah, well. I don’t want my first to be… like this.”

She blinks. “Your first.”

It takes him too long to think of a way to lie. “The—well. The time in the shop, technically. Depending on how you quantify those things.” He’s blushing now. He can feel it burning up his neck and over his cheeks and really, he wishes it were dimmer in here. 

“I had no idea.”

“No, it’s… not really something I advertise. And people assume.”

“So you…?” Vex trails off, eyebrow arching, head cocked a few degrees to one side. 

“You were the first person to ever touch me like that who I’ve wanted.” It comes out all at once, too quickly for him to bite off the end, and he just manages to stop himself from flinching. _Shit_.

Vex catches her breath. “Oh.”

Percy shrugs. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Alright. …Were you okay when I…?” 

“Yes! I mean, you—remember. That was,” he sighs. “You’ve done nothing at all to make me feel unsafe. And I slept better then than I had in… a while.”

“That’s good.”

They lapse into quiet for a moment. Then Percy holds out his arms. He’s not Keyleth, but he understands the theory. Put your arms around a person and hold on until they tell you to stop. For a moment, Vex hesitates. Without a word, she nestles in against his side, slinging her legs across his lap and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. His curl gently around her waist. A moment later, Trinket climbs into Vex’s abandoned space and plops his chin down on her legs with a soft whine. 

“…I tried to seduce you in front of my dog.”

Percy chuckles against her hair. “You did.”

“… _Wow_.” Vex presses her face into his shoulder. Her breath tickles his neck as she laughs. “Thank you. For, um…”

“No, no. You and I should have started talking months ago. I would have introduced you to Pike.” 

Vex’s thumb makes slow circles at the nape of his neck, just above where the scarring and his tattoo start. Her eyes fall half-closed. “I wish I’d met her sooner.”

He does, as well. Percy thinks about it, the idea of her meeting Pike before that bastard had gotten to her. Or of his being the one to step in when she needed help with her brother. Or of just… being able to be there at all. Earlier, when it mattered. It’s a foolish fantasy and a self-indulgent one. He’s no knight, and Vex does not need one. So if she needs someone to hold her and drive her home, he can offer her that, and he makes a note to see what he can do about how much of a death trap that damn bike remains. 

Maybe twenty minutes pass before Vex lets go of him. She slides her legs out from under Trinket’s head, stands, and stretches slowly. Percy pushes himself to his feet. 

“I’ll go.” Percy tugs his shirt straight. “I… will you be alright?”

“Yeah, thanks. I’ve got Trinket. Vax will be home soonish.” She opens her mouth, closes it, and then starts again. “I wasn’t just making a move because I felt like shit, for the record. So…”

“We could have lunch again. Or you could show me around the zoo? I haven’t been,” Percy offers.

“Really? Then we have to go. I’ll show you the bears.” Vex smiles at him, not forced, not brittle, but tired. 

“I’d like that.” 

“Wonderful. I’ll email you. Send you my number. We’ll figure out a good time.” Then she goes up on tiptoes and presses her lips to his cheek. “Thank you, Percy.”

“Thank you.” He blinks. “I’ll, um, tell Pike you’re alright?”

She nods. Then she takes a slow step back. “Really, Percy. If you ever want to talk about… anything, let me know.”

“ _Gah_ ,” he shudders just theatrically enough, he hopes, to cover the genuine bolt of—whatever the fuck that was. “I’ll keep that in mind. Sleep well?”

“You too,” she laughs. “Go, Percy. I’m going to be fine.”

He pauses for a moment. Maybe he should kiss her, too. But it’s a bit more than he can handle right then. So he settles for touching her shoulder, cringing internally, and saying a quick goodbye to Trinket. Then he makes his way out. 

 

Vex has sent him her phone number by the time he gets home. Percy adds the contact and stares at it for a good ten minutes trying to think of what to send. In a fit of panic, he snaps a picture of the roaring bear he’s working on for Grog and captions it ‘look, it’s Trinket.’ A trio of blue hearts appears after a few seconds, followed by a picture of Trinket flopped down on what seems to be a bathroom rug.

Percy lets out a shuddering breath and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Fuck.”

He wants to apologize. He had not meant to tell Vex  _that_ , not now, and certainly not when she was dealing with her own issues. Or, rather, he’d meant to say it. He just had not thought it through. And now the memories push at the corners of his mind. Percy bats them away to the best of his ability. Tomorrow, he’ll apologize, or the day after, when it won’t mean demanding her to put aside her own problems to one side. Or he’ll let it rest. 

He takes his nighttime meds, downs the rest of the glass of water, and collects his phone. Then he pulls up the conversation with Pike.

 

 **Percy:** Vex is alright for now.

 **Pike** : Good!!! Thank you for letting me know. Can you tell me anything?

 

Percy types out his response, backspaces the entire message, and then tries again. He erases that message, as well. Finally, he taps out a reply and hits send. 

 

 **Percy:** We talked, I drove her home. She has her brother and Trinket with her, and I’ll see her again soon. I’ll see you in the morning. 

 

It’s luck, mostly, that he does not dream that night. Or if he dreams, he does not remember it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Saller: Denoted a person who lived by a prominent sallow tree, from Middle High German salhe meaning "sallow tree."
> 
> Now everyone, please look at pictures of your favorite fluffy animals. I recommend videos of baby malamutes for that Good Good AU Trinket Content.  
> 💗💗💗


	6. Canvas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy and Vex have a trip to a zoo. It definitely isn't a date.

Percy shakes the worst of the creases out of the vest he had folded up in his bag that morning and frowns at it. He’d had a week to move from quietly panicking about what he had said to Vex to quietly panicking over agreeing to meet at the Parchwood Reserve and walk around together. 

Pike pauses in putting her piercing equipment into the autoclave to frown at him. “...aren’t you going to the _zoo?”_

“Yes. I’m not wearing a tie.” He finishes buttoning up the vest. It’s one of the more casual ones he owns—blue on slate grey in a barely discernible pattern— and Keyleth had once identified it as, in her words ‘not super poncy.’ 

“Oh, Percy…” Pike sighs. “Okay. You look good.”

Percy takes his coat down from its hook. “Thank you.” 

“Do you need anything? Snacks? A condom?”

“I feel like that’s a reference to something.”

“...oh, Percy.” For a moment, her mouth purses. Then she shakes her head. “Seriously, do you have condoms?”

“No. I. Don’t…” he trails off. There is actually a reasonably good chance he will end up needing them, considering. “...Do I have time to make a run for some?” 

“Hey—Percy. You know if you don’t _want_ to— I mean.”

“I know,” he waves a hand, heading her off. 

“Have fun.”

“I will.”

He pauses. He’d expected ‘I’ll try’ to feel like the correct answer, maybe, or to succumb to his usual pessimism whether it felt accurate or not. _Well_ , he thinks, _for however long this lasts_. He feels almost drunk. 

“Is this a date?”

“No!” He pauses. “Vex and I are friends. Or, we’re certainly trying to be.”

“But you think you might need protection…” slowly, her eyes widen. “Wait, have you— did you—?” 

There really is no winning this. Percy says nothing and waits for her to work through the stages of shock while he finishes getting his things together. 

“When?”

He says nothing.

“Percy, not when you took her home—”

“ _No_ ,” he answers immediately. “Neither of us were—no. Could we drop the subject?”

“Okay. Just… you know. Be safe. Have fun. Try to laugh a little.”

“That certainly sounds manageable. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

Percy had thought ahead that morning—taxi to the shop, walk to the Parchwood reserve. If need be, he can get another cab to take him home. He won’t think too much about whether it really is an if. This is not a date, and there is no reason for him to panic. He wipes his sweaty palms on his trousers and walks up to the front gate. 

Vex waves from the other side while he gets his ticket. Trinket barks once. When Percy reaches her, she goes up on her toes and kisses him on the cheek. “Hello, darling. You look nice.”

“So do you.” 

She does, too. The leather jacket hugs her in ways Percy really cannot stand to think about right now. 

“I brought a chaperone,” Vex comments. 

His gaze snaps back to hers from nowhere. “What— _Oh!_ Trinket.” he offers his hand for the dog to sniff. “Hello, Trinket.”

He gets a lick on the knuckles for his trouble and tries not to think about whether or not they _need_ a chaperone, or if Vex wants one. 

Vex beckons and they start down one of the winding pathways. The nearest enclosures hold birds that flap and squawk as they go by. Vex waves to the roadrunner and then points to where the barn owl hunkers comfortably in the shadows.

“He can’t really fly well anymore,” she explains. “The animals here couldn’t survive being released into the wild for one reason or another. Humans being awful, mostly.”

“That’s a shame,” Percy frowns. He leans a little closer to the owl’s enclosure and gets a baleful stare in response. “Still, though.”

“We keep them happy here. Lots of games for enrichment… I get to know most of them pretty well. Mostly the mammals. That owl doesn’t like anyone.”

“I feel like I’m meeting the family.” 

“I guess you are,” Vex grins at him.

He ducks his head. The two of them walk side by side. The path isn’t entirely wide enough for other people to pass them. They keep having to press to one side, Percy falling in behind Vex, Trinket between Vex and the passersby. He has a persistent urge to take her hand. Percy clasps his behind his back and continues to wander along behind her. By the snake enclosures, the crowds thin. Trinket sits down at Vex’s left side, and she waves Percy over with her free hand. He steps up beside her. 

“This is Simon,” she hooks her arm through his as she speaks. “He’s Vax’s favorite.”

“He has a favorite snake?” Percy asks, reading the sign reading ‘Albany adder’ on the rather plain-looking snake’s enclosure. 

“Favorite animal at the zoo.” 

He looks to Vex. “Show me your favorite?”

She takes him to see the bears. They remain at one another's' sides as they walk, regardless of the other people on the paths. It’s… wonderfully indulgent, and every time her hip bumps his, Percy glances over and waits to see if she’s going to pull away. She doesn’t, even as she waves at the grizzly bears splashing in their enclosure. The bears do not wave back, of course, but they seem to notice her and snuffle in her general direction. Trinket looks very much like he wants to run up and say hello. 

It’s not at all like being with Keyleth or Pike. They make their way from the bears to the otters arm-in-arm, and he doesn’t forget that she’s touching him. Percy waits for it to start feeling uncomfortable or overwhelming, and it doesn’t. It’s just warm. Except—it’s  _not_. It’s a heat that creeps from his arm to his side and spikes through his chest every time Vex brushes her hair away from her neck or smiles up at him or bumps against his hip. It’s dizzying. And every so often, he remembers the pair of condoms sitting in his pocket from the machine outside the drug store. The first time, Percy trips over a crack in the pathway. He catches himself quickly enough that all he gets from Vex is a raised eyebrow. 

She steps around in front of him when they’ve completed their circuit, hand against his chest. “Percy.”

“Yes?”

“You walked here. Was there something you wanted to ask, or were you going to go back to work?”

He swallows hard. “I—wasn’t going to go back, no.”

Does this mean this was a date? Was he meant to be flirting the whole time? Was she flirting when she nudged up against him? If she had been, it had worked. Percy wants in a way that terrifies him. Standing in broad daylight, he thinks he might let Vex’ahlia eat him alive. He wants other things, too. And he wants the wanting. 

“What were you going to ask, dear?” Vex prompts, a knowing smile curving her mouth. 

Percy wets his lower lip. “May I walk you home?”

She smiles, bright and delighted. “Yes, you may.”

 

Vex lets Trinket off his leash as soon as they step through the door of her apartment. “Go lie down, sweetie. Percy, do you want something to drink?”

“Ah, no, thank you. I was wondering, though.” He takes off his coat and hangs it on a hook by the door. “That bike of yours. Could I take a look at it?”

Vex raises an eyebrow. “Do you know motorbikes?”

“I do. Engines in general. I did that before I learned to work a coil. I work on my car.”

She considers him a moment, which he supposes is fair. Then she shrugs. “Sure. You can’t make it any worse, let’s be honest. But you’re going to get covered in… stuff. And you look nice. Are you sure?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Then, sure. Can I watch?” 

“Please.” 

He hangs his vest up with his coat and follows Vex down to the garage. She’s moved the bike since the last time he saw it. This light doesn’t make it look any less decrepit. Percy doesn’t have his tools, but she has a basic set she acquired at some point. He takes off his button-down as well, leaving himself in an undershirt. Vex whistles. Flushing, he settles down on the ground beside the motorbike. 

“What do you think of the name ‘Death From Above?’” 

Vex bursts out laughing. 

They lose track of time down there, Percy methodically working through the guts of the engine, grease smearing over his hands and his forearms. The engine is categorically a horrible mess. Percy swears a few times as he yanks out a particularly stubborn part so gummed up and corroded that he can barely tell what it’s supposed to be. 

“You ride this?” he asks, twisting around to look at Vex. “On purpose? Regularly?”

“Oh, shut up.” She picks up his button-down as if she means to fling it at him, but settles for holding it in her lap and idly petting the fine linen. “Anyway, I haven’t been since it sort of started sputtering and spewing smoke and looking like a death trap.”

“...Lovely.” He pauses to stretch before leaning back down and resuming his tinkering. “Tell me about the bears.”

 

Eventually, Percy sits back. “Well. I can’t do anything else without getting a few parts and bringing my tools. But I’d be happy to do that. It’s a well-made machine under all the… damage. To be perfectly honest, it’d be a favor to me.”

“We’ll talk about it. But… I mean. If you insist.” She smiles and gets to her feet. 

“Then I’ll insist.” Percy rises as well and stretches. “…Do you mind if I clean up a little?”

Vex’s gaze wanders over his shoulders, down, and then back to his face. “Sure.” 

He doesn’t flush this time, only follows her back up to her apartment. Vex keeps hold of his button-down, and Percy does not protest. He scrubs his hands and arms clean with dish soap at the kitchen sink while Vex ruffles Trinket’s ears and puts kibble in his bowl. While he gets the last of the grease from under his nails, she leans against the counter, watching. 

“This is a good look for you,” she observes, “very… with the tattoos and the…What’s the part on your back?”

“It’s a tree. For my family.” He wipes the drops of water off the edge of the sink without looking up. 

“...Is it something you don’t show people?”

He goes to reply and then pauses with his mouth partly open. She’s asking him to take his shirt off. Subtly, gently, which he appreciates. But she is asking. 

“Generally no,” Percy answers, and then steps toward her. “I could make an exception.” 

“Do you want to?”

He draws in a ragged breath. When she moves and backs him against the counter, he goes easily. “I’m having a distinct flashback to my workroom.”

“You still haven’t told me what you want.”

Percy leans down and kisses her. She presses against him, body to body, her fingers tangling in his hair and tugging. He groans, and as his mouth opens, her tongue slips past his lips. Vex winces as he wraps his arms around her waist. 

Immediately, he moves to pull back, coming up against the counter. “Vex?”

“Sore. Just—”

“Of course. Sorry.”

“You can take your shirt off? Make it up to me.”

He falters. “Um. I could. I can. I will. Um—It’s not pretty.”

Vex runs a hand down his chest and over his abs. “Really? Because it feels very nice. I mean, you don’t have to—”

“I just want you to be prepared.”

She brings her hand to the back of his neck and rubs her fingers in slow circles. “How about I go first, and we go somewhere Trinket isn’t. Fair?”

He nods, and Vex draws him by the hand from the kitchen to her bedroom. She closes the door once they’re both through. Then she reaches down and takes the hem of her short dress in her hands. She teases it up her thighs. This time, she’s not wearing tights or leggings, and Percy’s gaze drags up stretches of smooth skin. His knees turn to jelly. He drops his gaze to the carpet and swallows hard. 

“Eyes on me, Percy,” she sing-songs. 

He obeys, he can’t help himself. She stares right back at him as she pulls her dress over her head. Percy’s mouth goes bone-dry. He’s not— he’s never had occasion to feel possessive over a person, and that isn’t what he feels now. But that’s his work inked into Vex’s skin above the line of her lace-trimmed panties. He follows the rising bunch of her dress up her ribs to the curves of her breasts, and then up to her smirking mouth. He just catches the movement as she presses her thighs together. 

“Well?” She asks, more breath in her voice than usual, “don’t leave me in suspense.”

“You—” his voice cracks as though he’s sixteen, and he pauses to clear his throat. “You’ve been. Um. Taking excellent care of the ink.”

Vex stares at him for a beat before covering her face with both hands and falling to laughter. “Percival, what the fuck. What the—” she drags both hands down her face with a sigh, “I’m almost insulted. Is that really the first thing you thought of?”

“No,” he rasps, “but I thought I’d err on the side of caution.”

“Fuck caution.”

“You make a good point.” He crosses to her, stepping into her space, but not putting his hands on her yet. “May I touch you?”

“If you don’t, there might be trouble.”

Percy does. His hands slide up her thighs, skim over her thighs, and up to her bra. Her skin is just as soft as he had imagined, just as warm. The breath rushes out of him a moment before Vex tilts her face up and kisses him. She nips at his lower lip hard enough to make him hiss and then soothes the sting with her tongue. A moment later, she has his belt undone and his undershirt untucked from his pants. When she pushes it up, he raises his arms obligingly. Then Percy squeezes his eyes shut and braces himself. 

Cool fingers slide over his biceps and up to his shoulders. They track lines of muscle, not lines of scars. She can feel them under the grey coils of smoke that do their best to hide them from view. Vex’s hands drift across his collarbones and then down to the scars plainly visible on this chest, the puckered texture of a burn, the straight, raised line that cuts from the base of his sternum to his beltline. She doesn’t touch him gingerly, just curiously. Percy lets out a ragged breath. 

“Not so bad, mm?” She kisses his cheek and the corner of his mouth. “Anywhere you don’t want me to touch? Something you need me not to do?”

Percy laughs, lowering his forehead to her shoulder. “Just don’t pin my hands. I’ll speak up if something goes wrong.”

“Same. And no moving me places without warning.” Her voice holds a tone that makes him think the request is about more than the healing tattoo, but he doesn’t question it. 

Percy struggles to get his socks off without bending and then trips as Vex tugs his pants down around his knees. He tips backward onto her bed with a huff. A moment later, she’s over him, brushing stray strands of her hair from her face. 

“Hi.”

“Hello, darling,” 

She kisses him again, first his mouth and then his jaw before working her way down his neck. He muffles a sound only for Vex to bite his shoulder and make him gasp. His hips jerk, pushing against nothing.

“Good?” she asks, a smug smile on her lips. 

He nods. When she raises an expectant eyebrow, Percy clears his throat. “Yes. Quite.”

“Do you want to be quiet? You don’t have to be.” Vex sits up over him, hands braced on her chest. “I don’t plan to be.”

“I have… no idea.” Percy admits. 

“…Try it, just once.”

The dubious look he tries to give her falls away as she grinds down against him. He pushes against her on instinct, except there’s cotton between them and her heat is _so_ close. She moves again, a long, torturously slow roll of her hips, and a groan rises from his chest. Immediately, his face flames. Vex cups his flushed cheek and turns his head until she can catch his gaze. Then she moves again. He watches her mouth part and listens to her soft sigh and— oh. That’s what she means, isn’t it? Percy needs to get her to make that sound again. He needs to see her overcome, to see her _come_ , and to be the reason it happens. 

He sits up, hands sliding up her thighs. Vex gasps as he nips at the shell of her ear, pulls on his hair when he lingers with his mouth over the thrum of her pulse. 

She pulls back, smirking, and he has half a moment to wonder why before she speaks. “Help me with my _brassiere_ , darling?”

“I called it that _once._ One time.” Percy protests, ears burning red. Then he gives a breathless laugh. “If you insist.”

His hands shake, but he manages to get her bra unhooked. Vex shrugs it off. Percy’s jaw drops. He wants to tell her how beautiful she is, but all that comes out is a soft whine. She breaks into a laugh; not a giggle but a full-throated cackle, tipping her head back and only stopping when he leans in and closes his mouth on one pert nipple. 

“Oh–” she rakes her fingers through his hair, “here, try— use your tongue like—yes, oh, just like that. You can bite. _Gently_.”

He does as she instructs. Vex rises up onto her knees, and he drops a hand to cradle the back of one thigh, thumb rubbing circles into her skin. She lets him linger for a little while before pushing him onto his back again. 

“Anything else I could do for you?” he asks, maybe a little more smugly than he ought to have. 

“Cheeky.” Vex palms his cock through his boxers firmly enough to make him choke on his tongue. “But since you’re asking.” She guides his hands to the waist of her panties. 

Percy hooks his fingers beneath the elastic and tugs them down. He feels a little odd about looking, even if Vex did leave the lights on. Touching, though. She draws his hand up between her thighs, and he groans aloud. He can’t seem to get enough air. Vex guides him, hand over his, so his questing fingers slip through heat and wet and then up until he grazes her clit. She shivers as he touches it, so he does it again, tracing circles that grow firmer little by little. His tongue sweeps his lower lip. 

“Fuck, Percy— could I—?”

“Anything.” He’s aware he doesn’t mean _anything_ , but right now he doubts there’s much she could ask he wouldn’t beg to do.

He gets her desires confirmed when she climbs off of him and starts fixing the pillows. She takes maybe a moment to plump them up before settling her shoulders and head on them and deliberately spreading her legs. 

“You know,” she comments as he settles in between them, “I’ve only been able to sleep on my back pretty much since we started on the tattoo.”

Percy lets out a breathless laugh. “So lie back.” Then he bends down to lightly kiss one of the hawthorn flowers on Vex’s hip. 

"Admiring your work?” Vex teases.

"Something like that. Tell me what I can do for you.”

“Don’t overthink it, darling.” She goes back to playing with his hair, bringing her other hand to cup one of her breasts. “We’re not in a rush.”

Right. He takes a deep breath, takes off his glasses, and then leans in. Her taste floods across his tongue. Percy groans softly. He parts her outer lips with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and braces his right on the inside of her thigh. 

“Soft, darling,” Vex murmurs as he begins to explore. “No jabbing. Just— _mmm_ …” 

He strokes his tongue over her clit again. Then he dips down and traces patterns over her labia. Percy pushes his tongue into her, and Vex gives a soft cry. He can’t, as much as he’d like to, fuck her properly this way. She lets him try for a minute before tugging him away by the hair. So he returns to her clit, lapping gently. Her hips flex beneath his hands. She twists, just slightly, and he refocuses. She likes an inverted U around her clit, he finds, and his tongue works back and forth, back and forth, until she pushes him down. Percy’s cock jerks. He groans into her and goes back to learning every other place that makes her moan. When he sucks a little, Vex gasps. Then she hooks a leg over his shoulder. He almost reaches down to touch himself, just for a moment, but—no, he needs his focus for this. An ache builds in his jaw, but he ignores it, wandering back up to her clit. Above him, Vex keens. 

Percy draws back with a strangled sound, cock twitching and leaking. 

Above him, Vex shifts, pushing herself half upright. “Darling, that was a happy noise.”

“Sorry—no, I know. I almost…” he mumbles. 

He leans his cheek against Vex’s thigh until she draws his face up. “Oh?” and then a slow, sharp grin spreads across her mouth. “ _Oh…_ Well, whenever you’re ready.” 

Her fingers thread back into his hair, petting at it, and Percy groans against her thigh before leaning back in. He laps at her clit for a few moments before closing his lips around it and sucking. 

Vex whimpers. When he slows, her hand goes vise-tight in his hair. “Percy, _keep doing that_. A little harder, actually. And, fingers—” and then “oh _, fuck_ ,” the pitch rising and breaking as he slips two inside her. 

Her hips rise and roll, gently at first. Then Percy groans against her and Vex’s thighs close tight on his ears. She grinds against his mouth, sounds dissolving into gasps and back into high, sharp cries. Vex comes, clenching on his fingers, wet over his tongue. Only when she pushes him away with a soft whine does he stop. Vex sprawls out on her bed, laughing and throwing an arm across her face. A flush covers her face and chest. 

Percy tries to slow his breathing, shifting his thighs apart. There’s a wet patch on the front of his boxers. Quite frankly, he’s lucky he hasn’t come in them.

Perhaps he makes a noise, because Vex looks up at him, smiling. “Oh, darling. Look at you. Come here.” She pulls him down beside her and then rubs her thumb over his lower lip. “You look good when you’re a mess.” 

She tugs his boxers away from his skin and then off his hips. The need not to come early only barely outweighs his urge to angle away from her. 

Vex eases him back, smoothing her hand slowly up his chest. “Darling, I’ve seen it before, remember?”

“Right.” Percy reaches out and gently draws Vex in for a slow kiss. He gasps as her hand curls around his cock. “Vex—”

“You’re not going to come.” Her tone leaves him with no choice. “Not yet. Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” 

Vex grins, forehead still resting against his. Then she leans toward the bedside table. When she returns, she has a foil package between thumb and forefinger. Percy covers his face with one hand as he laughs. 

“What is it, dear?” Vex asks.

“I bought two and then left them in my coat.”

“Glad this wasn’t all my idea.”

“All your—” he starts to protest and then breaks off with a choked groan as Vex deftly rolls the condom down his cock. “...Minx.”

She laughs as she settles her knees to either side of his hips, and she’s laughing still as she guides the head of his cock into her. For a moment, they both go very still. Then Percy braces her with one hand on her thigh and uses the other to bring her fingers to his mouth. He brushes his lips across their backs. Vex takes him into her in a long, smooth slide. He clutches at her hip, and she squeezes his hand. They wait a moment before Vex begins to roll her hips. The rhythm feels instinctual, and yet they time it wrong, they stutter and stop. And then Percy closes his eyes, and Vex leans her forehead against his. Next time she comes down, he stops thinking. His hips rise to meet hers. They fall into a rhythm. Already, the pleasure of it feels like—like a knifepoint, like holding a rifle ready to fire, like the point before falling. He gasps for breath, chest heaving with it. 

Vex quickens her pace. Groaning, Percy follows. Then he fumbles a hand between them. He finds her clit, glancing off it at first as she moves. She guides him back to her and grinds against his fingers, against his cock. He fists his other hand in the sheets and holds on. Sweat slicks his skin and hers, between her breasts, over the back of his neck, more from heat than exertion. The sound of skin on skin mingles with Vex’s soft exclamations and the low cries he cannot seem to suppress. His rhythm falters. He teeters. Vex presses close to him, chest to chest. This close, her breath tickles his ear as she gasps. 

Percy comes a moment before she does. It’s electric, overwhelming, leaving him shuddering with his face pressed against her shoulder. Vex extricates herself and flops down on the bed with a low, pleased hum. It takes him a moment to remember to sit up and to deal with the condom, and he has to focus so that he doesn’t fumble it. 

Vex’s hand curls around his shoulder. “C’mere, darling.” She draws him to her, fingers intertwined, bodies apart out of respect to the heat. “Enjoy yourself?”

Percy ducks his head, a flush and a smile spreading over his face. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Thank you?”

“Well… And you? Did you…?” 

Vex snorts. “Percy. You felt me come. Twice.” Her fingers skim down his chest. “You’re _very_ determined.”

“You’re an excellent teacher.”

“I try.”

He leans in for a kiss and lingers with his lips brushing hers afterward. “…Do you want me to go?”

“Thank you for offering. No. I’m not kicking you out of bed.” Her smile turns wicked. “I’m not going to make you do the got-laid-parade right after your first time.” 

“Got—?”

“‘Walk of shame’ is bullshit.” 

Percy rolls onto his back but keeps his hands in hers. “Fair. But you’re sure you’re comfortable with having me here?”

Vex stretches slowly. Percy has to remind himself to keep his eyes on her face, and from the smirk that she directs his way, she notices when he does not entirely succeed. “I’m not going to panic.” At his look, she sighs. “I know. Not what you asked. This feels good. And not just the sex. I want it, definitely. I’d love to do all of this again.”

 “I’m flattered.” 

“I have so much more I can teach you.”

“Oh?” His throat works. “Do tell.”

She sits up and starts unraveling the last of her braid. Her gaze sweeps him up and down, and Percy finds himself caught between the urge to flex and to curl in on himself. Then she offers him one hand, curled into a fist. “Fuck-buddies?”

Percy looks from her hand to her face. Then he knocks his knuckles lightly against hers. “Sure.”

 

Later, after she’s given him some pointers on where to put his fingers—her words, not his, although he cannot disapprove of the pun—and after they’ve showered and he’s discovered that wet tiles mean anything that requires both of them to stand is more dangerous than it’s worth, they settle into her sheets again. He has his boxers back on, but Vex seems to think pajamas are for other people. She stretches out, plucking the bottle of lotion from the bedside table. 

Percy holds out his hand. “Would you like me to?”

Vex considers for a moment before passing him the bottle. “Go for it.” 

Despite all of the touching, all the places mouths and hands have wandered, he still pauses before he sets his hands to her skin. He feels her stomach flex under his palm and then relax as he gently works his way over the tattoo and surrounding skin. Vex sighs, melting into the pillows. 

“You’ve taken excellent care of this.”

“Of course I have. I’m not going to ruin your work. Or something on me forever.”

When he finishes, Vex kisses him on the cheek and gets to her feet. She does have pajamas, it turns out—a t-shirt, worn to softness and a pair of loose shorts that threaten to slide off her hips. 

“I’m hoping to sleep,” Vex tells him as she begins re-braiding her hair. “And I’d like to let Trinket in. He can sleep on the floor…?”

“Does he usually?”

“Nope.”

“Will he fit on the bed with me in it?” Percy asks, moving to the side Vex has left unclaimed. 

“Right at the end. He might put his head on your feet.” Vex points. 

“Then I would feel chosen.”

He catches a flicker of relief in Vex’s smile as she opens her bedroom door. Two seconds later, Trinket comes trotting in. He sniffs Vex thoroughly, lets out a small _boof_ , and then jumps up onto the bed. There, he pads in a small circle—or, small for a dog his size—and then lies down. Vex turns off the lights. The bed dips slightly as she settles onto it, and into her customary spot. 

They sleep. 

In the morning, they share coffee. Percy puts on the same clothes he was wearing the day before. They leave for work. It feels remarkably domestic, down to Vex kissing him until he’s breathless and grabbing his ass before she lets him out the door. He gets a taxi to the Rising Sun and hurries inside. 

“Morning, Pike.”

“Morning.” She waves. “First appointment is in an hour.”

“I remember.”

“You’ve got a little something,” Pike teases, “On your neck.”

Percy claps his hand over the spot Vex had sucked on the night before. Then he ducks into the back room to scrub down his workspace for the first tattoo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I'm at Ask-Ladyofrosefire. 
> 
> The author thrives on comments 💞💞💞


	7. Shade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A 3-am conversation. 
> 
> Warning for a quick but gory flash of Percy's backstory, and some vague talk about Saundor.

They do it again. Percy takes her home and waits for Vex to get through teasing him about his apartment before resting his hands on her hips, waiting for her nod, and setting her up on the counter. 

Percy’s busy with appointments and Vex is working at the zoo, so her tattoo remains unfinished for the next few weeks. In the meantime, they spend more time at her apartment than his. And he learns.

 

They don’t talk about it again, but they make a habit of sharing a bed after, curling up and sleeping, talking. Petting Trinket, too, once he decides he likes Percy enough to worm his way up between them and whine. But it’s odd sleeping beside another person. He shifts in the night, moving away from the other forms around him. The dreams come back. He brings his meds and takes then while Vex is busy. He keeps the emergency ones in his coat pocket. 

The dreams get bad one night. Scalpels and a metal table, his guts in her hands, and a great deal of blood. Percy comes bolt upright with a yell, his heart pounding, trying to push at a figure that is not there. Trinket raises his head and growls. 

His first instinct is to reach for the gun beside his bed. His hand snaps out and finds empty air. At home, he has a nightstand on either side, one nearer the door where he keeps his emergency medication and his phone while it charges. His glasses rest on top of the other and his pistol in the drawer, unloaded. When this happens at home, he turns on the lamp and goes through the motions of loading, unloading, disassembling, and reassembling until his hands stop shaking. Vex has one nightstand, and it’s on her side, leaving him without even his glasses, not that they would do much good in the near pitch darkness of her room. 

“Shh…” Percy whispers to the dog. “Go back to sleep.”

The sound of his ragged inhales feels implausibly loud. He wonders if he can get up and make a circuit of the room without either turning on a light or waking Vex and if he did if he could convince her of some excuse for his rising. 

“You woke up screaming,” Vex mumbles.

 _Shit_. 

“Don’t mind me,” Percy pulls at the blanket, bunching it up around his waist. Even in the dark, he can feel Vex’s eyes on him. 

“Percy, why are you awake?”

“It’s nothing.” He would like to lie down and feign sleep himself, but he can’t seem to breathe regularly enough for calm, let alone unconsciousness. Vex has to be able to hear it or feel it.

“Percy.” she does not sound sleepy anymore. 

He can’t see her, and he isn’t sure he wants to, so he settles for looking in the direction of her shadow. He heaves a sigh and props himself up on both elbows. “I had… rather an unpleasant dream and it woke me up.” 

A phantom ache radiates through his stomach and back. He wants to rub at it, or scratch, or to claw into—

“Rather unpleasant like naked in front of your high school class or unpleasant like being buried alive.” She sits up. Even if he can’t see her frown, he can hear it. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Percy glances away, though it doesn’t make much difference. “No. Not really. It’s never done me much good.” 

“Is it about…” she reaches out to but does not quite touch the shiny scar on his chest. 

Is he that obvious? The warmth of her hand just reaches him at this distance, and he considers twining their fingers together. If it were possible to outrun all his demons by falling into her arms or taking her into his, he would be tempted. He still would not do it. Or, he hopes not; she doesn’t need someone to comfort. 

“Mm.” With a sigh, Percy lies back down. If Vex wonders whether he means more than the dream, she does not ask. Her hand falls back to her side. “This isn’t really what you signed up for, is it?”

“We don’t really sign up for people.” 

“No, but one can only expect a person to put up with so much from a casual partner. Especially without warning.” He sounds horribly self-pitying. Percy’s mouth twists. “Sorry. I shouldn’t drop this on you.”

“You’re not, really.” He starts to say thank you, but she continues. “You haven’t told me anything.”

“Neither have you.”

Silence drops into the darkness, heavy as a stone. Neither of them moves for a long while. Then Vex sighs and rolls onto her back. “Come here, Trinket. Come be a blanket.” 

The dog does exactly as she asks, settling mostly on Vex’s chest and dropping his massive head down on her shoulder. Vex lets out a soft  _oof_ and then starts scratching his shoulders. 

“If I tell you I don’t want to talk about it, is it over between us?” She asks after a pause, a tightness in her voice.

“No. And… I should hope the same can be true for me,” Percy answers.

“Fuck,” Vex sighs heavily. She keeps patting Trinket, keeps staring up at the ceiling. Enough time passes that Percy almost thinks she’s fallen asleep again. Then she reaches out and finds one of his hands. “What if we’re both… just. So fucked up we can’t do this?”

“Can’t do what?” he squeezes her hand. “Be friends? Be—sleep together? It was going fine until just…” Until he woke up screaming in the middle of the night. 

“But we’re pretending, aren’t we?” Vex sighs. 

“Maybe,” He allows. 

Trinket’s tail starts wagging, thumping rhythmically against Percy’s leg. Percy eyes the spot for a moment. Then he drops his head back and gives up the whole idea.

“Thank you for not ever asking about—” she stops and swallows hard. The sound is thick. “It— um.”

He gives her a minute to continue before he speaks. “You told me what was happening when you met him and he… well. Took advantage.” 

“You make it sound so—like something out of a Victorian novel. The poor little governess gets pressured by the cruel duke. And then she runs away, and her reputation is ruined. Look at this example and don’t make her mistakes.”

“No one with any sense—” he starts. He isn’t wrong, exactly, but it doesn’t help, not when plenty of people who appear to have sense would tell Vex she brought Saundor and all his cruelty on herself. 

“I promised myself I wouldn’t make my mom’s shitty dating choices. I’d… learn from her. Spot the assholes before they got to me.” The false cheer in Vex’s voice collapses. “That worked out great.”

“I’m—sorry.”

“No, no. It’s fine.” She squeezes his hand. Then she draws it away and buries it back in Trinket’s fur. The shadow-shape of her shifts and he can tell she has shoved her face deep into the thick ruff around the dog’s neck. When she comes up, it’s with another wet sound. “I keep wondering how I was so stupid.”

“What do you mean?” Percy asks cautiously. It seems better than insisting she’s no such thing, even if he wants to. 

“He— it was bribery. And I said yes. And he bribed other people without—so he knew things. He found things out. And if I’d just realized at the beginning that—”

To hell with working to the point slowly. Percy gently rests a hand on her arm. “Vex, no. Dear, he took advantage. You were frightened and in a vulnerable position, and he used that. People like him… they take pleasure in hurting people. It doesn’t say a damn thing about what sort of person you are.”

“People like him,” Vex repeats, voice flat.

“You know what I mean.”

The word  _abuser_ hangs between them, unspoken. 

She hunches her shoulders. “True. Privileged people.” He does not let himself flinch, because she’s right. “You know, when Keyleth introduced us, I thought you were going to turn out to be like every other rich dick I’d ever met.”

“Did I pass muster?” 

He tries for humor, and it seems to work because Vex laughs. It’s not the cackle he likes so much, but it’s less sodden than any of the other sounds she’s made recently. 

She draws her arm out from under his hand, presumably to swipe at her eyes. “Mm. I wouldn’t have come to you for this if you hadn’t.” 

He supposes she’s gesturing at her tattoo, although she could mean their new arrangement. ”I don’t want to pry,” Percy hedges, “but you know you’re welcome to talk to me.”

“We’ve had this conversation already tonight, pretty sure.” She shifts a little, as much as she can with Trinket still acting like a weighted blanket. “Okay. Why a tree? I get the gears. The smoke is very you. Very goth. Tree?”

Now it’s Percy’s turn to shift where he lies, rolling his shoulders and looking for something to focus on other than Vex waiting beside him. “It’s a family symbol. The banner will have their names on it when it’s done. We’ve been busy.”

“And?” He can almost hear the raised eyebrow. 

He shrugs. “And it’s harder to tattoo over scar tissue. We do a little at a time.” 

“I like it. I like you.” She kisses the inside of his wrist, and then his palm. “I want to keep doing this.”

“I want to, too.” He doesn’t think he could admit it with the lights on. 

“We deserve this,” Vex adds. 

Percy lets out a cracking laugh. “Whether we do or not, we have it.”

“And we’re keeping it.” Vex answers. Then she gives a laugh of her own, quiet, but brighter than he expects. “...is this where we pinkie swear?”

Percy lets out a short breath. Then he hooks his finger with hers, gives it a quick shake, and then rolls onto his face. Trinket whines. Then his large, fuzzy head comes down on Percy’s lower back. 

“Thank you,” he mumbles into his arms. “I don’t know how I’d manage without you, Trinket. But your mother must be more comfortable than I am.”

“Shush, you.” Vex laughs. “Trinket, scoot, sweetie. You can be on my feet.”

Trinket makes a bereaved sound, but he gets up and shuffles his way to the end of the bed. It’s a process that involves misplaced paws and Percy wincing and trying to get his legs out of Trinket’s way. He curls into a ball, head on his paws, and sighs. Vex slides over. Her hand comes to rest over Percy’s shoulder blade. He shrugs, and she pulls away. 

“Sorry—” 

“No. You’re fine. I can do better. One moment.” He turns over onto his back, making himself comfortable before holding out an arm to her. “If you want. Seems worth trying.”

He can feel Vex’s smile against his skin when she leans against his chest.


	8. Scratch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy panics. Then he tells Vex everything. 
> 
> TW in the author's note

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Percy has a panic attack. There are also canon-typical mentions of torture, murder, and kidnapping. Nothing super explicit, but they're there.

Sometimes when Percy panics, the world seems miles away. He feels as though he walks through smoke that blunts everything, obscures everything. Focus eludes him as well as peace, and he drifts. Other times, everything turns razor-edged and bright. He has no lack of things to which he can hold, but none of them are safe. Nowhere feels safe. 

Percy sits on the floor of his bathroom, legs drawn up, head in his hands, and shakes. 

He has to—

To pick up the gun and—

Pick up—

Footsteps sound in the front hall and Percy scrabbles against tiles. His back hits the tub, his shoulder the edge of the cabinet beneath the sink. The breath rattles in his chest. His gun is—his glasses hang askew, and his hands shake as he tries to shove them back into place. Fuck, _fuck_. If he can’t see, he can’t—

“Percy?”

It’s Vex’ahlia’s voice. He stops trying to fix his glasses and raises his head, staring at the door. He had closed it, but not locked it. Even as Vex calls out again, the realization sends a fresh wave of nausea through him, and his heart gives a painful thud. _Stupid_ , so bloody stupid. What if it had been someone other than a friend? He shudders. When he tries to inhale again, his lungs seize, and his throat constricts. Percy coughs, hacks, and then hauls in a breath. 

“Percy, where are you?”

“In here.” It’s not loud enough. He clears his throat and tries again. “I’m in here.”

His apartment has an open plan, the curse of modern design. But it means there aren’t a great number of doors to muffle any noise. The sound of Vex’s footsteps quickly grows closer. The bathroom door opens. He jumps. 

“Oh, Percy.” Vex takes in the scene: the gun and clip on the counter, the spilled bottle of pills mixed in with a few stray bullets, the smell of sweat, his posture. Her shoulders fall. “Are you alright?”

“Is Pike here?” he rasps. 

“No. She offered, but… She had someone there and, you know, someone has to keep an eye on the shop.”

Percy groans. His head lands in his hands. Through the cracks in his fingers, he watches Vex approach. Scuffed brown boots on white tile, and then her jeans as she kneels beside him on the rug in front of the bath. She keeps her hands on her thighs. 

“I missed you. When you didn’t show up for our appointment.”

Shit. They’d scheduled the final session for Vex’s tattoo for that morning, hadn’t they. The sound he makes gets lost in his palms. “Sorry.”

“We can make it up another time. Darling, what happened? Was it another nightmare?” her gaze flicks toward the counter. “Was—I’m so sorry to ask, but—those aren’t for you, right?”

“ _No_ ,” Percy replies immediately. “Well. Not the gun. One of the pills.” He raises his head and leans it against the edge of the tub. “I dropped the bottle. Spilled it everywhere. And… well…” he has to pause to breathe. It rattles on the way in, hitches and shakes. 

Vex reaches out to him. “It’s alright. Um. Can I touch you?”

“Best not. Not right now.”

“Right.” She drops her hands back into her lap, twisting her fingers together. “Can you breathe for me, then? Slowly?”

He tries. He closes his eyes and forces his lungs to expand. The air comes too fast and leaves too quickly, and his head spins. Slowly. He tries again, without much better results. 

“Try shallow.”

Again, he inhales. This time, he stops once there’s a little air in his lungs, holds it for a second, and lets it out. Then he does it again. And a third time. And a fourth. He manages a slightly deeper breath on the fifth, but the sixth one catches on a sob on the way out. Percy covers his mouth with one hand. He has to get himself together. Deliberately, he takes a breath, and another, and then another. 

This time when Vex shifts toward him, he nods. She leans against his side, shoulder to shoulder. “Do you want me to tell you about Trinket? Everyone loves puppy stories.”

“Please,” he whispers. 

“Well, he’s a rescue,” she starts. “I found him with some shitty people. Decided to keep him. I’d never actually had a pet before, so I got, like, a hundred books from the library. Dog psychology, training manuals, health stuff. Read them all.” 

“Sounds like you.”

“Thank you. Anyway. Trinket doesn’t want to do _anything_ except lie on top of me and be patted, because he’s a baby, and there were shitty people. I… had to bribe him with a hot dog when I first met him. So he’d trust me.” She looks down at her hands for a moment. “It took a bit. And Vax was… supportive but confused. Spoiled Trinket _rotten_.”

He can sense there’s more to it, bits and pieces she’s not admitting to, or that she does not want to think of. Percy does not want to push her for them, not now. No use asking her to fall apart on him when she’s trying to help him pick up his pieces. 

“He seems like a good dog,” Percy replies instead because that’s true as well. 

“No thanks to my doofus twin,” Vex replies with a smile. “No, he’s just a big happy baby. Anyway, I taught him to sit and stay and come and… everything else. Down. Roll over. And then he—” she pauses, laughing the way people do when they can’t help but enjoy the funny part of the story they’re telling. “He got this habit where when I told him to sit and didn’t give him the treat _right away_ , he’d lie down and roll over as fast as he could.”

“I hope you gave him his biscuit.”

“I had to teach him to be patient… but, yes, a few times.” She turns toward him. “He got the idea eventually.” 

“Good for him. And thank you.” He rakes a hand back through his hair. “Let’s get off my bathroom floor.”

“Good idea.” Vex pushes herself to her feet. Then she offers him a hand. 

Percy takes it. He doesn’t need the hand, but his chest hurts, and it feels better to touch her. Hands still shaking, he puts his glasses back on and sweeps all but one of the pills back into the bottle. That one he considers a moment. Vex knows. At this point, it doesn’t matter. He downs it with a palmful of water. Then he picks up the pieces of the gun. He can’t miss how Vex shifts away from him, and he does not blame her in the slightest. 

“I’m going to put this away.” 

“Yeah. Good idea. I’ll, um, make tea, I guess. Have you had food?”

“Ah…” 

“Can you eat with your meds?”

“I can.” 

Vex heads toward the kitchen and Percy toward his room. The gun goes back in its proper spot, unloaded. It occurs to him he should keep it in the safe, but that requires more stability than he has right now. At least the pistol doesn’t live under his pillow anymore. He had never meant for Vex to see it. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Percy mutters, scrubbing his hands over his face. Then he goes back out to the kitchen. 

“Percy, what the fuck is in your fridge?” Vex greets him. She stands in front of it, frowning at what little it currently holds. 

“I was going to go grocery shopping this afternoon,” Percy replies. His gaze wanders back to the kitchen island and the stack of mail on it. “Ah…”

He had picked it up that morning and set the collection on the counter. Then he had looked down—

His head buzzes. 

Percy backs away from the counter and fixes his gaze on the ceiling. He had just gotten his breathing together. His chest expands, hitches, contracts. He closes his eyes. The next breath he takes comes smoothly, if not easily. 

“Hey—what is it?” 

“The letter on top of the pile.” There’s no point lying. He inhales again and then goes to put on a pot of coffee. He keeps his face turned away from the counter. “Would you like a cup?”

“Sure.” He hears the sound of rustling paper, the tap of envelopes against his granite countertop. Then, “…Who’s Ripley?” 

Percy sets the bag of coffee grounds down, braces both hands on the counter, and lets out a heavy sigh. “Dr. Anna Ripley is… the reason I have this tattoo. She’s the woman who—scarred me.”

A chair slides against the floor, and she settles into it a moment later. “And she— is she alive? How is she sending you letters? Do you have a restraining order?” She asks. Vex doesn’t open the letter. 

“She’s dead, so, no.”

“She’s dead.”

“I shot her.”

Vex sucks in a breath. “...I have to ask. What happened?”

She had found him with a pistol. Percy finishes with the coffee maker and then joins Vex at the counter. The chill of the granite seeps into his forearms. It pulls him back to the earth. Percy isn’t sure if he should be grateful for that or not, but at least he knows he’ll be able to speak clearly. It’s—fair, in a way. He knows what Saundor did to Vex, even if he doesn’t know everything. So he braces himself. Then he rises and begins to pace. 

“I was. Seventeen. It was winter. A couple and a friend of theirs came to our—my family’s door. The couple tied up my family and killed all of them except me and my younger sister. Cassandra they kidnapped. And they left me to their friend. To Ripley. And she did… this.” He pauses for a moment to gesture to himself. After that, he can’t seem to still his hands. His rubs up and down his forearms, over the lines of ink and collagen. “Cassandra helped me get away, to… to get to someone for help. But by the time I got back, they were gone with my sister. We lost them.” Percy pauses, gritting his teeth against the swell of nausea. His nails dig briefly into his arm. “A year later, we tracked down the couple. He was shot by the police. She died in the chaos. Cassandra was… injured, but alive.” 

She had been the one to kill Delilah with a kitchen knife. She had told him and no one else.

Percy continued. “Ripley found me at home. Not here. The family home. I shot her in the head. Honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t find the story.”

“I wasn’t looking for that.”

“But you did google.”

Vex shrugs. “Months ago. Briefly. Apparently, they decided it was old news.”

“Four years.” Percy ducks his head and considers his hands. Vex’s hand covers both of his, and he looks up into her face. “Vex…”

“How are you still getting letters from her?”

“She set it up before I shot her, it seems. I’d imagine it’s a contingency plan, although I’d have to read them to know. Pike— usually checks first.”

“I’m so sorry, darling.” Vex squeezes his hands. Then she reaches up, her hand curling around the back of his neck, and draws his head down to her shoulder. “I’ll stay for as long as you want. Alright? Least I can do.”

“The least you can do is nothing.” Percy draws back. “You—really don’t have to get involved.”

“Oh, I know. But I am already.” She tilts her head as if daring him to protest. 

Percy folds in on himself. It would be easy to protest, easier than continuing to let her in, even after he’s told her the worst of it. Exhaustion drags at him. It’s all a dark, bloody mess, more literal than not, and if he could drown it in coffee and anti-anxiety medicine, he would. But sitting here with her, he wants to pour out everything. Vex does not deserve that. She also does not deserve him acting like a child, not now, and not later. Not the next time this happens. 

“I don’t want my problems to affect you.”

“Mine showed up at your shop, making threats. I don’t think—I think… we have to try and make our peace with it.” Vex glances away, jaw working. “I’m not offering to be your therapist or your nanny. And if I thought you were asking me to do that, I’d be long gone.”

“No, of course.”

“Good.” 

They look at each other. The coffee machine hisses in the background, slowly filling the pot.

“I can make my own choices. You didn’t ask me to come here.”

“True,” Percy admits. “I think… anyone who tried to make you do something would regret that decision very, very quickly. But… it was your idea for this to be casual. Us. No obligations, no mess. We can’t have that and be… this.” He gestures between them and then toward the bathroom.

Vex presses her lips together. 

“I don’t want to ask you for something that makes you uncomfortable.” 

“But… that’s just it. I mean, why this is— you do make me comfortable. You make me _happy_. I don’t want to lose you over this. Not when I don’t have to.” She blinks. “I’ve never—what I mean is… this has been wonderful for me. I thought, you know, that time in your workroom. ‘Oh, I’ll just get this out of my system. Feel something nice.’ But you were so sweet.”

“I’m really not—”

“Yes, you are, Percy. I’m not having this argument now.”

He laughs without meaning to. Then he takes her hand in his, rubbing his thumb in an arc across the back of it. “Alright. I’ll let it go.”

“You better.” She sighs. “I’m willing to give something real a chance if you are.”

“It’s not going to be easy.” 

“I know. But we’re clever. We’ll figure it out.” Vex clears her throat. “You should text Pike. Tell her you’re okay.”

“I will.” Percy stands. Then he stops, leans toward Vex, and presses a slow kiss to her mouth. Not because he feels he should, or because he’s trading for her affection. But because she makes him happy, even with that letter still sitting on the counter. And he wants to share it with her. “Thank you, Vex’ahlia.”

“…Percival.” She’s smiling as she goes to pour them coffee.

 

After, they go to the grocery store. They walk together, not hand-in-hand, but close, jostling against each other from time to time when they reach for the same thing on a shelf. Vex teases him, saying she’ll have to bring him along whenever she goes in the future because of his height. He draws her in and deliberately rests his chin on her head. Vex winds her arms around his waist. And, for a while, they stand like that, getting used to the novelty of holding another person. Then they realize they’re blocking the aisle and hurry along, muffling laughter until they’re in the bakery section. 

Later, they curl up together. Percy does not cry. He would have allowed it, he thinks, if tears had come. There is quiet, and there is calm. 

They don’t fall asleep together. Vex disentangles herself at about eight, straightening her clothes. “I have to feed Trinket. And walk him.”

“Of course. I’ll see you…? Well. I can get you in tomorrow to make up your appointment.” Percy offers, fixing his glasses. 

“Day after.” She kisses his cheek. “But yeah, I want to see this finished.”

“Tell Trinket hello for me.”

 

He walks her to the door, locking it after she leaves. The panic has drained from him, along with nearly all the energy he has. Percy takes the time to shower and brush his teeth before collapsing back into bed. He finds himself curling into the space she had vacated. Nearly all her heat has left it, but it feels better, somehow. If she were here, he thinks, he might still shift away from her. But he misses her warmth. 

That night, though, the dreams stay away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On a happier note, the Trinket story is based off something one of my dogs still does regularly because she's a demanding little baby. Look at some cute animals, you know the drill. 
> 
> I'm on Tumblr at Ask-Ladyofrosefire, as always.
> 
> The author thrives on comments 💘💘💘


	9. Breathe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to SparxWrites, NotAFicWriter, and Damoselmaledisant for all their help putting this fic together. 💜 💜💜

Vex comes in for her session, not two, but four days after Ripley’s letter arrived. There had been an incident at the zoo, apparently, involving a capybara going into premature labor. The resulting panic meant Vex had to come in. On the day she arrives, it’s warm enough that Percy carried his coat to work rather than wear it. She wears the leggings Percy has realized are her standard for when her ink is healing. Her shirt is not—a blue, sleeveless turtleneck cut off roughly at the same point the tattoo starts. 

“Hey, Pike,” she greets, leaning past the waiting area and into the space where they do the work that doesn’t involve people taking their pants off. 

Grog sits backward in the chair while Pike works on the roaring bear on his back. She’s integrating it into the blocks and angles of black that cover his shoulders and creep down his back. 

Pike sits back and sets down her tattoo machine. “Hi, Vex!”

“Hey!” Grog looks back. “S’you! How are you?”

“Better than last time, thanks. I _love_ the bear.” 

“Yeah!” He cheers. “I like the birds.”

Percy clears his throat. Then he opens the workroom door and waves her in. They’ve only done this twice before but watching her slide out of her boots and leggings feels— well. Not routine. He hopes he never gets used to seeing her like this. And he hopes, too, that there won’t come a time when he can’t. The thought makes him fumble the coil, and Vex turns at his stifled curse. 

“Everything okay, darling?”

“Mm. Quite.”

Vex winks at him. Then she settles onto the table and tucking her shirt under her bra. 

“Have you thought of getting more?” Percy asks, pulling on his gloves.   
One of her eyebrows arches toward her hairline, and her mouth quirks. “If you want me to take my clothes off around you more, you can just ask.”

He manages not to sputter. “I could. Hold still, and try not to laugh at your own jokes for a little while.”

Vex mimes zipping her mouth closed, and Percy waits for her to stop laughing before he gets to work.

This part is truly routine: alcohol wipes and vaseline, holding the skin taut as he sets the ink to it. It would have been faster if they had gone by colors instead of doing one side at a time during the last session, but there is something very satisfying about watching the colors bloom this way. It takes some time. As always, Vex's is the final appointment. Percy finishes the bird’s eye and then straightens his back. For the first time since he had shown her the sketch, his stomach twists and jumps. It looks, to his eye, beautiful, fierce, and damn well done. But it won’t mean a bloody thing if she doesn’t like it. 

“Well?” he asks. 

Vex swings her legs off the table and hurries to the mirror. “Oh, Percy…”

He sees it, then. He always looks, since there’s nothing like the moment someone sees the change on their body and knows it is just what they wanted. The look is a little different from person to person but always recognizable. Vex’s eyes widen, and a smile lights her face. She brushes her hands just around the edges of the tattoo. A glimmer comes to her eyes. But her smile does not waver. If anything, it grows, brightens. 

“It’s perfect. Thank you. I love it.” She hugs herself, above the level of the tattoo, and turns from side to side a few times.

“I do have to wrap it at some point,” Percy reminds her. 

“Just… give me another minute.”

“Take as long as you need.”

He uses the time to wipe down the table, although he looks up from time to time over to where Vex is still admiring the ink. Finally, someone knocks on the door. 

“Vex, c’mon! We want to see it!” Pike calls.

“Just a sec!” Vex yells back. 

“A little longer than that,” Percy corrects as he pulls on a fresh pair of gloves and beckons to her. “I need to cover it first.”

 

He steps out first when they’re done, blocking the interior of the workroom from view. Pike cranes her neck to look past him, albeit unsuccessfully. At the counter, Grog stands up straighter. Scanlan, beside him, turns mid-sentence. Keyleth sits in one of the chairs by the window next to a black-haired man who looks both more and less like Vex than Percy had expected from her twin. He looks over a beat after Keyleth and jumps up. 

“Stubby! Hey! Come on out. I brought flowers.” He bends and scoops up a bouquet of delphiniums. “Let us see!”

Keyleth waves. “Hey! Vex invited both of us. ”

“Are those your flowers, then?”

“I mean, they were. And then it turned out we were going to the same place.” She rises as well, brushing absently at her skirt. “Vex, don’t keep us in suspense.”

There is a very deliberate pause while they all wait, watching the workroom door. Then Vex, once again in her leggings and boots, albeit with the waist rolled down an inch or so, steps out. She’s still grinning, and she stops to pose in the doorway, raising one arm with a flourish. 

“Well? What do you think?”

Keyleth claps her hands to her face. “Vex, it’s _perfect_. I love it.” She gestures up and down. “It’s so _you_.”

“Damn right,” Vax agrees. He holds out the flowers. “Congrats.”

“On getting a tattoo,” Vex asks dryly, taking them. “Thanks.”

“Thank you,” Percy echoes. 

Vax hugs her, easing up fast when Vex flinches and twists away from him. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She flips her braid over her shoulder. “I need to pay for this. But I want dinner, and if you’re done here, Pike? Percy?” They nod. “Great. We should all go out.”

Grog shifts. “Us too?”

“Yeah,” Vex smiles. “What can I say? Good first impression. And Pike has good taste.”

“Scanlan Shorthalt,” he introduces himself, offering his hand to shake. “Friend of Pike’s and Grog’s.”

“Hi. The nose ring looks good.” She turns to Pike. “You do good work.”

“Thank you! Let me know if you ever want one.” Pike flips the sign on the door to ‘closed.’ “I know a great burger place close by.”

Percy gets his coat down from the hook and folds it over his arm. He thinks about protesting for a moment. It’s more people at once than he’s sat with, on purpose, in quite some time. Then he looks at Vex and her bright smile and considers that he really ought to make nice with Vex’s brother. He looks at Keyleth and Pike, who are both already set on going to dinner. And he _likes_ Grog, if he’s being honest. He circles back around the counter to Vex and offers his arm. 

“Walk with me?”

She loops her arm through his. “Happy to.” 

They make their way into the night, Vax and Keyleth up at the front, Grog behind them, and Pike and Scanlan just ahead of them. They chatter back and forth. Keyleth and Grog seem to have hit it off, and she turns back and forth between him and Vax. She nearly clocks him once as she gestures. Vax sways easily out of the way, laughing, before catching her hand. He lets go a moment later. Then he turns to ask Pike something Percy cannot quite make out. 

Vex keeps touching the cover on her tattoo, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes shine. When Percy slows, she hardly seems to notice, except to slow as well. Then her head comes to rest against his shoulder. 

“Mm?” he leans toward her, bringing his other hand up to cover hers. 

“Oh, nothing. I’m enjoying the fresh air. And the company.” Vex grins at him and waggles her eyebrows. “Think they’ll notice if we slip away later?”

“Probably,” Percy replies. 

“Do you care?”

He straightens, not bothering to fight his own smile. “Not in the slightest.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Delphinium meanings include openness to new experiences and overall positivity. These beautiful blue flowers evoke feelings of joy, warmth, and fun. Delphiniums are the perfect flower to gift someone who may be feeling down on life, and to encourage them to broaden their horizons in order to try out new experiences." [source](https://www.ftd.com/blog/share/delphinium-meaning-and-symbolism)
> 
> Anyway.  
> Thank you all so, so much for reading and commenting. I loved showing this story to you, and I loved writing it. Your support, your engagement, and your encouragement have been amazing, especially since I was posting most of this while going through the summer section of my masters' program. All of the serotonin has been super, super helpful.  
> Let me know what your favorite part from the fic was in the comments? And thank you again. 💘💘💘

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you like it! Yes, emojis count. 
> 
> As always, I'm at Ask-Ladyofrosefire on tumblr.


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